Planting Jackpine in a poor location

[Jeff]

What I (and Sawyer) did yesterday! Planted trees and Sunflowers!  I was gifted (over) 50 Jackpine Seedlings and I wanted to get them in the ground correctly, so I had to improvise since I didn't have the proper tools. This property is not ideal for Jackpine, but what the heck, let's give it a try!

[jb616]

I planted 200 Norway spruce last year and got a 3" auger from Home Depot to use with a cordless drill to auger a hole deep enough to push the roots down in and pull it back up a bit to keep them straight....Bring a wrench to tap that solenoid when it won't work. Sometimes they can be opened to sand the contacts clean again and will work for quite a while. (just disconnect the battery first) 

[Jeff]

Turns out my battery was low. I put it on the charger and it started.

[barbender]

The only soil that would be considered poor for jackpine, is good soil😁

[Jeff]

This is poorly drained, and when dry, its dry. High clay content and sits on a clay base. Drainage is via evaporation, or migration off the clay base by gravity. 

[SwampDonkey]

Jeff, mom and I planted 50 jack pine on dark mud ground that would grow cedar or balm of gilead. This was 1989. You could find water there if you wanted to look with a shovel. Joe Pye weed always grew there. But anyhow, they turned out to be the nicest jack pine I ever saw as far as plantation jack pine goes. Nice and straight and not too limby. You might be surprised how they do. This ground has clay but below root depth, from there up black organic stuff. The clay is light grey, like lime. Most likely lots of carbonate.

[barbender]

Some of the best Jack pine in my area grows in a region that has a lot of wet sand. There will be jack pine, black spruce and tamarack growing together in the low spots. It's wet but not boggy, the ground is solid and not peat. The higher ground in those locales grows large diameter jack pine with good form.

[Clark]

The only soil that would be considered poor for jackpine, is good soil😁

When I saw the title I thought the same thing!

Where is the location of your great looking jack pine? It has it’s place but I generally don’t care for it and finding nice jack pine is, as you know, difficult.

Clark

[barbender]

Northeastern Itasca County. There's a stretch of sand country up there from Togo down to south of the Bear River.

[SwampDonkey]

Wild jack pine from fire up here is way better pine than typical plantation jack pine. I believe some of the seed for plantation was probably not the best pine. Kinda like some of the Scots pine that was brought over here, I never saw one of those worth a darn grown around here. But in it's native forest there are nice pine.  Most of the plantation jack around here is terrible limby and crooked stemmed. On old fire ground it grows thicker and straight as flag pole. I've seen some nice stands of it in Northumberland county growing on glacial till. That county probably has some of our best jack pine. The plantations around here with it did not have natural pine on that land. The Irvings cut the junk all down after Arthur and put in spruce. It was almost dead anyway, 50 foot trees with 10 feet of green crown left and small diameter.

[wisconsitom]

Trying to think what UP county it was had that big fire a few years ago.  Looked like a lot of jack pine burning.  Luce?  Schoolcraft?

Maybe some good regen around there.

[Jeff]

That was the Duck Lake fire near Newberry

[upnut]

The Duck Lake Fire consumed 21,000 + acres in 2012, this pic was taken in 2015...



 

The State of Michigan has had some success replanting along the Two Hearted River, mostly it's miles of barren land the last leg of our trip to The Mouth of the Two Hearted river campground, which barely survived...



 

The landscape timbers along the end of the foot bridge are charred, but survived intact...



 

The campsites behind me were spared. 

Scott B.

[wisconsitom]

Yes.  Duck Lake.  Lot of jack pine burned up in that one.  Took a few weeks to get under control too, iirc.  Pretty big fire.

[wisconsitom]

Thanks upnut.  Didn't realize this happened so near Tahquamenon.

[SwampDonkey]

A few years ago I remember visiting a fire sight that was jack pine before the fire. Someone scarified it and planted black spruce on it. 3 years had passed, there were probably 10 natural jack pine to every planted spruce. But as far as planting, there could be a billion red spruce or fir on a site, and someone still wants to plant black spruce. Never will figure that out. Years ago, you got dinged for planting like that on government ground or private woodlots. It was part of the job quality to offset from a natural of good health and vigour. Now they don't care.

[barbender]

I've never seen plantation jack pine that is worth a dang, either. I don't know why the state even plants it, to be honest.

[wisconsitom]

It's my least favorite pine, but it's got it's place.  Along US 45 in Ontonogan and/or Gogebic Counties in western UP, there was quite a bit of decent JP plantation that looked like it was growing in pure sand dunes.  I haven't been up that way for years, but it used to look alright, for something growing on such unforgiving stuff.