FERTILIZING PEACHES 





medium of their extensive root system are capable of 

 gathering their food from a wide extent of soil at varying 

 depths, they must have a continuous supply of rather 

 quickly available plant foods if the trees are to continue to 

 yield profitable crops throughout a series of years. 



Plant Food Requirements of Peaches 



According to recent statistics 100 peach trees are the 

 average planted per acre. When the trees have come into 

 bearing and yield as much as 400 bushels per acre, the fruit 

 would remove* only 22.2 pounds of nitrogen, 11 pounds of 

 phosphoric acid, and 45.5 pounds of potash. The leaves 

 estimated to weigh about 5,300 pounds would remove 47.7 

 pounds of nitrogen, 8 pounds of phosphoric acid, and 42 

 pounds of potash. The new wood calculated to weigh about 

 1,500 pounds would remove 8.6 pounds of nitrogen, 2 pounds 

 of phosphoric acid, and 2.5 pounds of potash. The total 

 amount of plant food removed from an acre peach orchard 

 planted on the basis indicated above and in full bearing 

 would be approximately 78.5 pounds of nitrogen, 21 pounds 

 of phosphoric acid, and 90 pounds of potash. 



A further examination of the analysis of the peach will 

 doubtless furnish information of unusual interest. The 

 fruit pulp contains .08 per cent of nitrogen, .04 per cent of 

 phosphoric acid, and .2 per cent of potash. The stones con- 



* Van Slyke Fertilizers and Crops. 

 Four 



