Lime fruit trees? Surely you have heard of it before. For those who don't know why it's done or how it's actually done, here's an explanation.
The liming of fruit trees in the autumn months can be traced back to a long tradition and has the demonstrable benefit that pests hardly ever tamper with the respective fruit tree, especially in winter. At the same time, the lime coating reduces moss on the tree trunks. Your limed fruit tree will look much better cared for and you will also enjoy a higher fruit yield.
But that's not all: the lime protects the tree trunk from excessive solar radiation, especially in the winter months, because the white lime color can reflect the sunlight. Because when the fruit trees are affected by frost at night and the sun during the day, the tree trunk is exposed to immense stress (enormous temperature fluctuations), which only a protective layer of limescale can reduce.
The natural lime coating (lime is one of the natural products) consequently minimizes internal stresses in the old wood, which means that there are far fewer frost cracks in the wood. And that is enormously important, because otherwise various pests would quickly spread in the crevices!
Lime fruit trees - That's how it's done
You can buy the biodegradable product lime in powdered form in garden stores, but also in many hardware stores. You then have to mix this odorless lime with water until it is creamy and apply it evenly to the tree trunks with a robust tassel brush. So you don't have to lime the ground as usual, but the tree trunk.
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In the case of pronounced tree bark, you must repeat the lime coat several times in a row, because this is the only way to achieve a pore-deep coating result. The advantage: Pest larvae that have already been deposited in the fruit tree are usually killed at the same time.
You should always lime the entire tree trunk (up to the crown of the tree) so that pests can no longer crawl up it from the ground. You can intensify this effect again by applying a glue bandage that you put onhalfway up the trunk.
Renew lime coat annually
In the course of the year, such a lime coating will of course be washed off again by the rain. The lime then seeps into the root area, which has the advantage that the fruit tree is also fertilized at the same time. You no longer have to fertilize all the fruit trees over the course of the year. However, you should renew the lime coating on the fruit trees every year in autumn.