TREE SEEDING

[KDJ]

I AM DIGGING SEVERAL LARGE PONDS AROUNG MY PROPERTY IS THERE ANY GOOD TRICKS TO GETTING TREES GROWING AROUND IT QUCIKLY AND INEXPENSIVELY LIKE SPREADING ACORNS OR SOME HOW GETTING THE SEED OUT OF PINE CONE OR THROWING IN SOME POPPLE ROOTS BEFORE I GRADE OFF THE DIRT PILES



KDJ

[Tom]

If your are after pine, then buying some seedlings is the best bet.   Some Oaks grow pretty well from acorns but you never know what the germination is going to be and usually it is more difficult to produce a tree from seed than a transplant.  Transplanting will get you known stock. 

You don't have to necessarily buy hardwood seedlings.  Most hardwoods and cedars can be transplanted from the woods if taken up when real small, like one foot or less.  Pines usually extend taproots very soon that can be damaged in transplanting unless lifted properly from soft ground.  I'd go to a nursury for them.

A good place to start would be your County Forester, who could put you in contact with a State Nursery.

[SwampDonkey]

Do as Tom says and you'll have good success. But, if you want to experiment alittle you can try planting acorns, butternuts and walnuts this fall in the ground a couple of inches in the mud. Use the float test with a bucket of water, toss the floaters. If your going to have bare ground, you should cover the areas you seed with leaves and put some fir-spruce bows on them to hold them over winter from blowing away. In the spring remove just the bows. The leaves will hold moisture in the spring when the ground temperature rises. Also, if you want to try balsam poplar, you can cut the tips off this years growth and bury them 2-4 inches in the mud. Regular aspen like big-toothed and quaking will not regenerate this way unless some growth harmone is used. And for your trees to do well they need to be rooted in good topsoil (typically the first 12 inches of natural topsoil), subsoils lack essential nutrients.

[jon12345]

One time I cut up a quaking aspen that had blown over for firewood, when I went back to get it to burn in a campfire 2 months later, the pieces were all still alive  ???

I've also transplanted sugar maples that were about 12-18" tall and they did OK watered them almost every day for a couple weeks though.  They're all taller than me now,6-8' in the 4-5 yrs since I moved them.  There was a little over 50% survival rate, and I planted them less than an hr after I dug them up.

You might also try leaving it alone, some seeds might naturally regenerate if there are seed bearing trees nearby.

[SwampDonkey]

We've cut treelength sugar maple in the fall and left it until july to buck up and it had live green leaves that came form dormant bark buds.

Yes young seedlings of sugar maple transplant very well. Best done in early spring as soon as the frost leaves the ground. I've planted several and as long as the mice don't attack them, I've had 99 % survival. They really start to take off the 3rd season. Mine have grown 2-4 feet a year in the back yard. The two trees beside the house that are about 30 inch dbh are 25 years younger than most people think.  I have a family photo with them in the back ground. Dad was only 4 in the picture, he's 67 now. The trees were just little twigs.

[KDJ]

THANKS FOR THE HELP

KDJ