Tree Planting Time

[chet]

Made out my order for a thousand Red Pine for this springs planting tonight. Had to dig a little deeper in the pocket again. They are getting to be a little pricey, 25% price hike just in da last year.  :

[Kevin]

Chet;
Where are you planting them ... and please don't say in the ground?

[chet]

OK I won't say dat, but dem trees do grow better in da dirt.  ;D   I have about 25 acres of old pasture land that I have been planting. I'll probably never get anything out of them, but da kids or grandkids will.

[Kevin]

Isn't red pine one of the worst for stress or is that an old forestry forum tale?

[RMay]

Chet just out of curiosity how much does 1000 red pine go for in your neck of the woods ? in Arkansas loblolly & shortleaf pine is $35.00 per thousand through the state nursery ;D

[chet]

Yur prices sound a heck of alot better. Here Red Pine are $200 a thousand. White Pine and White Spruce sell for $225 a thousand.

Kevin,
It must be a tale, I've cut lots of it for construction lumber and love it.

[RMay]

Chet all of ours are one year old bare root seedling . We grew 10 million pine & 5 million hardwood seedlings this year  :

[chet]

These are bare root also, 6" to 12" seedlings.

[UNCLEBUCK]

Hi Chet , I built my dads log cabin out of red pine "norways" and its hard to pull nails out from thats sure. Good stuff, I like it. How do you plant your trees ? by hand or with a pull type planter ? I ordered 500 black walnut and 500 Jack Pine and 25 sugar maples from the minnesota state nursery to all be planted in my pasture , was curious to know if I can plant all these by hand or how everyone else does it. I see Larry Copas has a tree planting machine for sale but the ad appears to be over a year old.  I been through the u.p. twice since christmas and you have had alot alot alot of snow . Thats so beautiful up past you there . thanks

[OneWithWood]

'Tis the season.  We planted 75 2-0 white oaks yesterday 'cause it was too wet to do anything else.  We have 125 white oak and 200 red oak to go.  We do it the slow way, by hand with a shovel.  We are planting in the openings we created in the last harvest and the terrain does not lend itself to anything except hand planting.  I keep thinking about getting a regular planting bar but the root structure on these two year seedlings is fairly developed and I just feel better digging a hole.  We are placing most of the seedlings in the tops of the harvested trees.

[SwampDonkey]

Chet:

Red Pine bare-root stock are the absolute best for planting on old pasture land. We've had very good success with them, they do even better than container stock if properly cared for and handled. The bare-root stock we used to get from the Dept of Nat. Resources was around $180/thousand up untill 1992. After that the government nurseries have only been  supplying seedlings for planting on Crown Lands. Container stock is $160/thousand here from forest companies and private nurseries, but their so-called 2 year old stock from nurseries are too small for my liking so I steer away from them and plant white spruce. They don't even meet DNRE specs regarding height and stem diameter.

They tell me white spruce is hard to grow in nurseries, but I don't follow. Because in fields and scarified land , white spruce germinates prolifically. If my uncle didn't mow his field across the road from the house it would be a solid spruce forest by now with seed coming off my spruce behind the house. The field is down wind of the seed source. An acre of ground I cleaned up and sprayed round-up on is seeding in well with white spruce also, since there are lots of cow shade spruce on-site. I supplemented the site with 15 inch tall yellow birch seedlings which are doing well too. This year the birch will have quite a jump in size. I tried birch in the woodlot but there is more grass and goldenrod which invites rodents to nest and eat the birch ;) . If you want birch on a site, make sure its realively grass free and there are no deer. :D

[chet]

I have had great success with red pine. The last few years I have been flipping the sod and then planting in the furrow. This has cut losses to almost nill, and also seems to have helped growth the first few years after planting.

[SwampDonkey]

Chet we used a Kulla scarifier behind a tractor to scalp the sod in a square meter and then we went to a 2 furrow plough. Some folks with a plow will roll the sod behind the plough to diminish air pockets. Generally 95 % survival or better. We've planted hundred of acres of old fields with red pine over the last 20 years. The only problem I've seen with bare-root stock is j-rooting and the trees tend to topple over at around ten years of age. The soils most promone to it are dry sandy clay loams if planted later than May 30th since the soil gets hard and difficult to make a planting hole with a shovel. And you get the planter rocking the shovel back and forth creating an open air pocket around the roots.

Happy tree planting