Hello all. I’m very interested in the Apical analysis and products that Ryan has been harping on. Does anyone with a hobbyist collection have an experience they can share about the cost and outcome? Also are smaller quantities of the product? It’s hard to for me to invest a bunch of money into a few trees. Thanks
As someone having a degree in horticulture and having a good understanding of plant physiology and growing things. For most of us this is not the limiting factor in developing trees. I won’t judge its value on high end trees that might have some issues that need correcting because I don’t know enough about it. As a beginner to intermediate most likely you are making mistakes in the way you manage your trees that is limiting. Going apical would then be a costly bandaid while you still have to fix the underlying limitation.
If you a high value tree wether emotional or $$$ and this tree is struggling the bandaid might easily be worth it.
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I have had a few Apical tests done to see what the recommendations might be. One of the recs was to let water sit in a container for 24 hrs to let chlorine off-gas and allow certain dissolved solids to settle out. I’ve been doing that and it was no cost to me besides investing in some 5 gallon buckets. I have about 60 trees but I’m retired, so except for the tedium, the time it takes doesn’t matter to me. Some days I am pressed for time and use the hose on everything except my more valuable (to me, at least) trees.
We have good water here, except for a high pH (around 7-8). I tried adding vinegar, but wasn’t very scientific about it, and some trees didn’t look that great, so I stopped. I never bought any Apical products, since one of the recommendations was to add aragonite and I didn’t want to deal with it, as I don’t have much storage space in my garage, so have gone the low tech method I mentioned above.
One thing I did change was to fertilize more aggressively. I used BioGold this spring and the trees seem to be better (huh, who knew?!).
I am planning on sending some JBP needles from a couple of different trees to Apical next week to see what is up with them, since they are yellowing a bit. Don’t know if you have done any testing, but it might be worth it to do your household water and one or two trees and see what the results are. You might try that, and go from there.
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I have been using apical method on several of my trees. The initial investment of product was a few hundred USD, this would very a little bit depending on how many trees and how many different products you need. I find that most of the recs for my trees are fairly similar with one or two product differences. At the scale I am using the small small quantities that I ordered should last me at least a year. I think the larger investment is the recurring testing at $110 a tree. It does become burdensome to test more than just a couple. I have had a few of my trees that had significant nutrient imbalances that I saw immediate benefit from switching over to apical. The rest of the trees are a little bit nuanced but I would say I’m still seeing positive change in all trees so far. Knock on wood! Hopefully this helps!
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Yes the ferticel products are pricey. I picked up the 10-0-0 since nearly all my recs require it. My last rec had 0-20-0 and I’m also looking for an alternative since it’s just the one tree for now. I think we need to tailor the apical approach to meet our needs and financial budgets:)
I use ~5-8 tbsp of the 10-0-0 usually. Idk if I’ll get through all of it in the 2 yrs but I bet there’s some wiggle room haha. I’ll take a look at those, thanks for the tip. The thing I’ve learned so far is it’s all about the ratios not the levels, so maybe the balance with your phos is still not right?
Hi,
What is the best time to perform the soil testing with Apical? I am trying to see if I should wait for next spring. For broadleaf trees, I understand that you need to cut fresh leaves so definitely not late fall - winter… does anyone have any insight?
Thanks
Mathieu