Fast growing hybrid larch suitable to plant in Allegany County NY

[ID4ster]

Bitternut,

If you're going to plant them in an old hayfield then you'll want to do some site prep this fall. Generally when I plant larch in an old hayfield here in the west I'll do a spot spray in the fall by flagging a spot and then using OUST (Sulfometuron) mixed at 3/4 teaspoon to 4 gallons of water. If your soil is more basic then you have to reduce the amount of OUST that you use. Follow the directions and make sure that you get at least a 1/4 inch of rain within 2 weeks after you apply it. Fall herbicide treatments work better for me since you have the entire winter to push the herbicide into the soil which results in a better kill of the competing vegetation. Planting any tree into an old hayfield or CRP ground without killing the grass is a recipe for disaster. Plant the trees in the spring as soon as the soil warms to 40° F in the spring.

If I were in Allegany county though I'd put in Black Cherry, (Prunus serotina). That area grows the best Black cherry in the entire world and I'd hate to waste ground on a larch of any type in that area.

[SwampDonkey]

We planted fields here that have had a 2 furrow plow run every 6 feet for rows, plant the hinge. Great success. Old run out fields will get colonized naturally by white spruce up here, sometimes tamarack. All depends on seed source. Some fields are so run out, that all there is is low herbs like wild strawberry, devil's paint brush, sparse grass and sparse goldenrod. But any field with heavy grass and thick tall weeds has to be dealt with. Never had much luck with one application of roundup on fields planted to trees. Softwoods (not tamarack or cedar) can be over sprayed in August up here. Weeds quickly come back with just one dose. You get 2 years growth with the plow or a disc trencher before it thickens up.

[wisconsitom]

Forage grasses and especially alfalfa are tough competitors for little planted seedlings or plugs.  My hybrid larch went in following one year of Roundup-Ready field corn.  That made for a fairly clean planting.

Did have absolute explosion of common ragweed following planting.  A wet year, the weeds grew thick and tall.  I could not find any of my seedlings.  Spraying at this point was out of the question.

The very next year, the entire ground layer had converted to goldenrods and aster.  Seedlings were still hidden.  That would have been 2009.  Those trees are now 35 ft tall and require thinning.

Trust me, once your larch trees are one inch above the weed layer, it's game over-the trees have already won.

[SwampDonkey]

Tamarack grows twice as fast as balsam fir and fir twice as fast as spruce. Woody stemmed weeds I say. 

[barbender]

Any field I've ever seen, the challenge is to keep trees from sprouting up and taking off.

  I've never planted or managed trees in a plantation. One little experience I had, I transplanted some 1' white pine to my folks' yard. The ones I kept mowed around cooked in the sun. The ones I left the grass tall around thrived.