Compost in fruit trees and rootstocks
05 December 2022 - Published by Hanne Lakkenborg Kristensen
Published by Esther Hessel, Smeets Agroconsultancy and Delphy.
In the Province of Flevoland two fruittree- en rootstockgrowers added compost in their fields. To see the added value of compost in growth and quality of their plants. And to find out if compost is a good substitute for peat.
Flevoland is one of of the parts of the Netherlands which is very suitable for growing fruit trees and rootstocks. After two years the fruit trees find their way to the fruitgrowers in both the Netherlands and abroad. The rootstocks are the starting material for fruit tree growers to graft the apple variety on. For the fruittree grower the quality and branching of the plants is key. Frans Rijk applied compost in his field to see if compost leads to a better plant quality. Grower Blok used the compost to find out if peat, which is normally used as a layer between the rootstocks, can be substituted by leaf compost. Listen to their story and look at this nice video!