Soils and Fertilizers for Pecans 95 



ten-year-old specimen should be given twenty pounds, an 

 eleven to twelve-year-old twenty-five pounds and so on, until 

 thirty to forty pounds to a tree each year is reached. As the 

 trees grow larger, the amounts may be increased further ac- 

 cording to their needs. The fertilizers should be used in con- 

 junction with liberal amounts of organic matter supplied as 

 cover-crops turned under or as stable manure. Fertilizers 

 will not give maximum returns with a soil deficient in organic 

 matter and incapable of retaining moisture. 



The fertilizer should be applied to the soil just before 

 growth begins in the spring. It should be spread uniformly 

 in a concentric circle around the tree, allowing the radius of 

 the outer circle to equal the height of the tree. The inner 

 circle, marking the distance the fertilizer should be kept away 

 from the trunk of the tree, may be only ten or twenty inches 

 from very small individuals one and two years old, gradually 

 increasing in size until the fertilizer is kept eight or ten feet 

 away from the trunks of large trees. It may be worked into 

 the soil by hand or by harroAV. 



Available materials most commonly employed in making up 

 a fertilizer mixture for pecans are acid phosphate, and some- 

 times bonemeal, as a source of phosphorus, and muriate of 

 potash, sulfate of potash or kainit as a source of potash. The 

 ammonia is generally derived from two general types of con- 

 stituents, the quickly available, as nitrate of soda and sulfate 

 of ammonia, and the slowly available as cottonseed meal, blood, 

 tankage, and fish scrap. 



Skinner shows the correct proportions for mixing some 

 of these constituents to make a fertilizer containing 9 per 

 cent phosphoric acid, 5 per cent ammonia and 3 per cent 

 potash. 



