FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
23 
FERTILIZING 
Like cultivation, fertilizer should be ap¬ 
plied not only to produce fruit of good 
quality, but to keep the tree vigorous and 
healthy. The subject of fertilizing for 
quality is one that we can not take too 
seriously, one that deserves a great deal of 
our attention and one that I am sure is 
getting a great deal of study from all of 
us. There is of course, no standard ferti¬ 
lizer formula that may be employed in 
every grove. A certain treatment that 
might bring forth good results in one 
grove possibly would not do as well in an¬ 
other grove of a different locality. In 
fertilizing, we must ever keep quality of 
fruit before us. It is easy to give the right 
kind of fertilizer in amounts as to make a 
tree grow off vigorously, but it is also 
easy to fertilize a tree so heavily as to 
lower the quality of the fruit. Too much 
fertilizer lowers the quality, too little, in 
most cases, improves the quality of the 
fruit, but as is often the case, at the ex¬ 
pense of the tree, for it reduces the vital¬ 
ity of the tree, and if followed up, will 
naturally interfere with the crops to come. 
It is, therefore, necessary for our pocket- 
book’s sake, in fertilizing to endeavor to 
strike a happy medium. In fertilizing for 
quality there is another condition that I 
think that it might be well to mention and 
that is that we sometimes have drouths 
during the late summer and fall, such as 
we had last year, to the extent that the 
trees are unable to take up the fertilizer 
that was applied in early summer, so that 
when it comes time to put down the fall 
application, we would do well to consider 
this fact and put on a lighter application 
than otherwise. An over-dose at this time 
will show up later in the fruit on the trees, 
having a tendency to make the skin peb¬ 
bly and rough, as well as retarding the 
maturity. Much has been said about fer¬ 
tilizers at our meetings, what fertilizers 
best to use, how and when to apply them 
and I do not think it necessary to enlarge 
upon this factor in fruit quality. 
SPRAYING 
Spraying is by no means a minor factor 
in the producing of good quality fruit. 
There is nothing that can lower the qual¬ 
ity of fruit more successfully than a heavy 
infestation of either white fly, purple 
scale, rust mite or thrips, to say nothing 
of melanose, scab and other fungus dis¬ 
eases, all of which may be controlled by 
proper spraying. By proper spraying, I 
refer to the spraying being done in a very 
thorough manner at the opportune time. 
An orange or grapefruit affected with 
thrip marks, rust, melanose or citrus scab 
is an unsightly thing, even if the eating 
qualities are really good; while on the 
other hand, fruit infested with white fly 
and purple scale not only lose greatly in 
appearance, but are also totally lacking in 
flavor. It is not my purpose to tell how 
or when to spray, nor what materials to 
use. I can only say to produce first qual¬ 
ity fruit these pests must be controlled and 
this can be done by spraying. By a care¬ 
ful study of Bulletin 30 of the Agricul¬ 
tural Extension Division of the Univer¬ 
sity of Florida, we may select a spray 
schedule to fit our own peculiar needs, 
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