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Only the well-kept garden looks beautiful. Therefore, gardeners have to monitor their fruit trees every year: pruning, whitening trunks, treating and spraying the crowns. One of the best fertilizers for fruit trees is urea, which is also called urea. Spraying the garden with urea solves several problems at once: the plants receive the necessary trace elements and protection from most pests.
This article is devoted to how urea is used for fruit trees, what it consists of, what benefits it has for the garden. Here you can also learn about the important features of such fertilizers as urea, how to prepare the garden for processing, how to properly spray.
Characteristics of urea
Spraying fruit with urea is considered one of the most effective methods of fertilizing a garden. Urea is an organic substance, although it looks and is used as a mineral supplement. Colorless fertilizer crystals are odorless amides of carbonic acid.
Urea is a versatile agent used not only for plant nutrition, but also for the prevention or destruction of insects. Urea granules contain an extremely high amount of nitrogen - more than 45%. Particles of this fertilizer quickly decompose in the soil under the influence of living bacteria and microorganisms, therefore, in an extremely short time they reach the roots and saturate the plants with useful substances.
Outwardly, urea is very similar to saltpeter, but unlike it, it does not burn the leaves, so it can be safely used to spray the crown. Granules dissolve very easily in water, but it is better to use water heated to 70-80 degrees. The resulting solution is perfectly distributed over the treated plant, quickly absorbed by all its parts.
Rules for working with urea
Before spraying fruit trees and shrubs with urea, you should familiarize yourself with the important rules for working with this substance. So, choosing urea as a fertilizer, the gardener should know the following:
- Urea, in fact, is an organic compound, but it is usually referred to the group of mineral nitrogenous fertilizers.
- The urea fertilizer begins to act immediately, and the treatment has a long-term effect.
- As a fertilizer, it is more effective to apply granules directly to the soil, spraying the crown is more expedient in order to prevent and control pests.
- You can use urea on any soil, fertilizer works well in greenhouses or in greenhouses.
- Urea is very effective on soils exposed to waterlogging.
- Urea is the safest way to treat the crown in the summer heat - even a too concentrated solution will not burn the leaves.
- One of the properties of carbamide is a slight slowdown in the growing process - treated plants begin to bloom later, which reduces the risk of damage to the ovaries by recurrent frosts (this quality can be used for early varieties of peaches,plums, cherries or apricots).
- The nitrogenous composition can be used during the budding period on fruit trees, which saves plants from a variety of spring insects and early diseases.
- It is strictly forbidden to mix urea with other fertilizers, both mineral and organic.
- In the soil, urea is converted to ammonium carbonate (ammonium carbonate).
Preparing the garden for spraying
The very first treatment of the year should begin with the preparation of the garden. Early in the spring carry out an audit of the garden and perform some preventive actions:
- pruning damaged, dry and frostbitten shoots;
- dig up or loosen the soil around fruit trees;
- check the integrity of the bark on trees and, if necessary, clean the dead areas with a metal brush;
- they make an audit of cracks in the bark and reveal accumulations of insects in them - pests must be destroyed before treating the garden with urea;
- collect rake last year's fallen leaves, dry grass and other debris that can become a habitat for larvae and bacteria.
Urea against insects
As already mentioned, urea is a universal remedy that not only saturates the earth with nitrogen, but also helps in the fight against garden pests. Spraying fruit trees with a carbamide solution is an effective prophylaxis that is recommended in spring.
It is necessary to start spraying the crown in early spring, as soon as the air temperature rises to 5 degrees. Until the fruit buds have blossomed, the insects are in a dormant state, they are inactive and respond well to processing.
Attention! Urea is not able to cope with all pests, but it actively fights against the most common and dangerous of them (aphids, honeydew, apple blossom beetle, weevils).
For spraying fruit trees, it is necessary to prepare a solution by diluting about 600 grams of urea in 10 liters of hot water. When calculating the total amount of the solution, you need to adhere to the recommendation: for 10 square meters of the garden, about 2.5 liters of diluted urea will be required.
The treatment of those fruit trees that were very sick or were actively affected by insects in the last season will be especially effective. Of the garden diseases, the following are amenable to urea:
- monilial burn;
- scab;
- purple spotting.
A solution of carbamide is not able to completely destroy the causative agents of these diseases, but it leads to inhibition of bacteria that lose their ability to reproduce. That is why it is very important to spray as early as possible before infections begin to spread.
The same substance can be sprayed on fallen leaves before winter, for example, when dry leaves are used to shelter plants and their roots from frost.
Urea as a fertilizer for the garden
As a rule, experienced gardeners use urea solution both as fertilizer and for the prevention of diseases and pests. For spraying, it is important to choose suitable time:
- the air temperature should be above +5 degrees;
- ants (predecessors of aphids and other insect pests) crawl near the trunks of fruit trees;
- the garden is cleaned, damaged shoots are cut off, the soil is dug up;
- the day is sunny and calm.
If all conditions are met, you can start preparing the solution. Work with organic matter in a protective suit, mask, goggles and gloves. For spraying old trees, it is recommended to use a special sprayer with a long boom nozzle. A stable step-ladder will also help the gardener.
there is some tips for beginner gardeners:
- If the task is to fertilize the soil and destroy insects, then it is better to mix urea with copper sulfate: 700 grams of granules + 50 grams of copper sulfate + 10 liters of water.
- No need to spare the solution - carbamide is not capable of harming fruit plants.
- The first spraying should be carried out before bud break, the second treatment should coincide with the flowering of fruit trees, and the third time the garden is treated immediately after the ovaries appear.
- If it rains within 24 hours after spraying, the treatment of plants will have to be repeated.
- Additionally, you can carry out root treatment of fruit trees with carbamide. For this, granules are poured under the tree and the plant is abundantly watered. The calculation of the amount of fertilizer depends on the type of plant and its age (usually apple trees need about 230 grams of granules, and cherries and plums - no more than 150 grams for each tree).
- If, in addition to urea, some organic fertilizers were used, its dose should be reduced by a third, or even half (depending on the quantity and quality of organic matter).
Conclusion
Urea treatment of fruit trees is today considered one of the most effective and safe methods of pest control and soil fertilization in the garden. The carbamide solution does not burn the leaves, so it can be used at any stage of the plant growing season. As a nitrogenous fertilizer, both a solution and granules of this substance can be used (in the latter case, the ground should be watered abundantly).
Urea is a versatile and affordable product that is great for budding gardeners.
