Tree Planting First Year Mortality Rates

[Treeflea24]

Hey Foresters,
I just did an inventory of a planting that I did last fall, and I now have the survival/mortality rates by species, and also by site areas.
Im staring at the data and trying to figure out what they are telling me, and I'd like to get some input from you all on it.

The trees were planted in December 2022. Hand planted with a dibble bar, each got a weed mat and a 4' or 5' tube installed.
Overall, we planted 567 trees. 160 died. 407 survived. 28% mortality overall. 

There were 10 main species planted:
136x Home-grown black walnut (5% mortality)
69x Home-grown red oak (33% mortality)
27x Home-grown miscellaneous, redbud, catalpa, cherry, etc (7% mortality)

The rest were purchased from a nursery
92x Swamp white oak (8% mortality)
93x Bur oak (23% mortality)
25x White oak (40% mortality)
27x Sugar maple (44% mortality)
23x Bitternut hickory (57% mortality)
25x Shagbark hickory (72% mortality)
25x Tulip poplar (88% mortality)
25x Pin oak (100% mortality)

Any major takeaways that you see from these numbers?
Some of my current thoughts/questions:

• SWO was the star performer of the nursery stock. I dont know if it is just better suited to the site(s), or if it is typically a more hardy species. The K.I.S.S. approach seems to be to just plant SWO or more black walnut at each of the failed locations. Seem logical?
• I didnt (and still dont) know what to expect in terms of mortality rates, and if some or all of these rates are normal. I'd love to get some thoughts on that.
• The 100% mortality in pin oak tells me that I had a bad batch from the nursery. Does that seem likely? Has anyone experienced something similar before?
• Planting in the late fall - I wonder if and how that might factor into survival rates and if that is part of what is going on.
• The low survival rates on the tulip poplar - the nursery's website had mentioned that it is difficult to transplant, but I was still disappointed at only 3 survivors out of 25. Does this align with anyone else's experience or expectations?
• With these high first-year mortality rates, should I expect the slaughter to continue? Or if they've made it this far are they likely to keep surviving? I counted it as a survivor if it had green leaves on it, but some of them didnt exactly look like the happiest plants...
• The hickory way underperformed by my expectations. When you compare that with the winners (SWO, black walnut, bur oak) does that tell you anything about the site/situation that is going on?
• There were some interesting trends when looking at the data sorted by the site/area. A pic below shows the sites, and also a screenshot of the table showing mortality at each. Site "W" had significantly higher overall mortality.
• Overall Im pretty disappointed with the outcome. Im planning to replant at the failed locations. Does this sound unwise? Any thoughts or tips on how to approach it?

Curious to get your guys' thoughts on any of this info to see if it is telling you anything that I am not able to see from it.

[beenthere]

Too many variables to draw conclusions.

[SwampDonkey]

Seems awfully late to plant trees in the north. Could be drought, from lack of root development before freeze up, maybe improper handling of the plugs, or improper planting technique. Also, zoning of the planting stock, which would be less likely from a reforestation nursery in the area. See any frost heaving of the plugs? Where the home grown in plugs or bare root?

I've never planted trees past June, biggest threat here is wildlife browse. Snow shoe hare love to nibble spruce, pine, birch and oak seedlings. I'm thinning ground now where about every beech is girdled by hares, if not that it will get beech bark disease anyway. :D

[Clark]

I had the same thought as SD about the late planting. Granted, if you're in  the southern part of the lower peninsula you might get away with late planting. 

Hickories - I'm not surprised with the low survival. The are not a common species at nurseries and that is in part because they transplant so poorly. 

Oak - With the exception of SWO the numbers are surprising. I wonder if a more traditional spring or fall (late September) planting would give better results? I would be willing to bet on it.

I've experienced bad lots of trees from the nursery. And usually it shows up after the trees have been in the ground a year. So some of your mortality rates could be due to that.

Overall I'm surprised, rates are rather high. But the late planting likely factors in. With your acumen for taking notes it would be interesting to see growth rates, even if it is time to reach the top of the tube. I would expect survivors of high mortality groups to grow slower. Of course, you could compare sugar maple (44% mortality the first time) with a second planting of sugar maple that hopefully has a notably lower mortality rate. 

Clark

[customsawyer]

Keep in mind that I'm not a forester. I'm also down in GA. so a different climate. I have planted several millions of trees. Any planting we do down this way is done when the trees are dormant. They were mostly bare root seedlings. Are you planting bare root or container seedlings? How big are these trees you are planting? Those mortality rates are rather high. Hope you can figure out what is causing it.

[Ron Scott]

I agree. December is a little late for fall planting, especially of it has been a dry fall. I wouldn't recommend fall planting any later than October 15th or thereabout.

[Treeflea24]

All of these were bare root seedlings, no plugs or container stock.
The nursery stock was all 6-12". The nursery is in the mid-latitudes of Michigan, I am down near the OH/IN border.
The stuff grown at home was 12-24".
December was the soonest that the nursery was willing to ship, and their concern was waiting for dormancy.

I forgot to mention one piece that seems to align with a lot of the feedback around the thought that December was too late in the season for planting:
I was able to transplant the home grown black walnut (95% survival as of now) in October, because they went dormant much earlier than everything else I had at home, and I was usually able to pull them and plant them on the same day.
Seems to backup the theory that December was too late in the fall/winter to plant.

Thank you for the input. I will stick to the spring plantings, and adjust the species mix & qty to remove or reduce numbers for the low performing species.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, spring planting is much more favorable for better survival.

[SwampDonkey]

April-May are the best up my way before the ground dries. This summer however June was great to, never had time to dry out. Last year June was good to, cool and wet all month.

I'd use a shovel with bare root, unless your dibble bar is a lot different than ours. Up here a dibble makes about a 2" diameter hole, the size of a 45 cavity tree tray. And we have smaller heads for 67 counts. Most have gone to Pottiputkis instead. Dibbles were easy to make and cheap and indestructible.