Dibble or Shovel?
- Thread starter Victor Van Meter
- Start date
Victor Van Meter
5 year old buck +
Livesintrees
5 year old buck +
Which would best for rocky soil.
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
I've planted hundreds of bare root trees using hand held post hole digger, shovel, gas auger, and dibble
Dibble works best for me
bill
Bill
Administrator
MDC nursery will ship anywhere..
Codie Gleason
Yearling... With promise
For bare root seedlings a dibble bar makes quick work. I'm usually planting 18" bare root seedlings.
cavey
5 year old buck +
Toss the dibble bar in the garbage can - they were and always will be junk,... heavy hunk of antique useless steel. Maybe an ok idea when there was nothing else out there to use. But just like a rock was once good to pound with - a hammer is better now. Invest in tools that professional people use to plant trees with - the pacific northwest is a good area to look at professional tree planting tools. As for the dibble bar I have one and and you are welcome to it.
3 of the best purchases I have made when it comes to tree planting are below: I have planted thousands of trees. I do not claim to be a expert, just a fool that has planted thousands of trees and learned along the way. I am not brand pushing they are just what I have bought
Brushpro Hiballer tree plating shovel -- for planting 1-3 year old pines and smaller rooted plants like red osier
Wolverine all steel D- handle planting shove HDT SHV/DH12DP for larger rooted or older hardwoods
Brushpro tree planting bags/padded shoulder harness with bags - get the lined insert bags they help to keep the roots cool and aid in keeping them hydrated (as a side note a hand pumped spray bottle for water to keep the roots constantly damp is another good purchase).
I have recently purchased the for mentioned Earth auger and I am growing very fond of it, It made my life easier heeling in 100 potted apple grafts this fall. Bored the holes in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to hand dig them in. I would be a slightly concerned about using the auger in my clay ( glazing of the sides of the hole while augering ). A simple 3 prong hand garden tool to rake the sides of the hole prior to planting would take care of this. I fully intend to use the power auger for planting this spring.
3 of the best purchases I have made when it comes to tree planting are below: I have planted thousands of trees. I do not claim to be a expert, just a fool that has planted thousands of trees and learned along the way. I am not brand pushing they are just what I have bought
Brushpro Hiballer tree plating shovel -- for planting 1-3 year old pines and smaller rooted plants like red osier
Wolverine all steel D- handle planting shove HDT SHV/DH12DP for larger rooted or older hardwoods
Brushpro tree planting bags/padded shoulder harness with bags - get the lined insert bags they help to keep the roots cool and aid in keeping them hydrated (as a side note a hand pumped spray bottle for water to keep the roots constantly damp is another good purchase).
I have recently purchased the for mentioned Earth auger and I am growing very fond of it, It made my life easier heeling in 100 potted apple grafts this fall. Bored the holes in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to hand dig them in. I would be a slightly concerned about using the auger in my clay ( glazing of the sides of the hole while augering ). A simple 3 prong hand garden tool to rake the sides of the hole prior to planting would take care of this. I fully intend to use the power auger for planting this spring.
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g squared 23
5 year old buck +
Last year my order from the MDC was too large for one person to do alone (or at least ME on a limited time budget). Therefore I cut corners and used an auger on my battery powered hand drill. The results for dogwoods were very good; results for concordia oaks weren’t half bad; results for norway spruce were disappointing, but still had a lot of survivors.
My order for this year SHOULD be much more manageable. I’ll use a shovel for the spruce, but probably will go with the auger for the smaller shrubs. I ordered some ROD from IA DNR, and for those I’ll definitely use the drill.
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My order for this year SHOULD be much more manageable. I’ll use a shovel for the spruce, but probably will go with the auger for the smaller shrubs. I ordered some ROD from IA DNR, and for those I’ll definitely use the drill.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Tree Spud
5 year old buck +
Do most of you understand that a dibble bar or spud was the "least expensive" option that the US Forestry Dept could buy for the forester to plant 10,000's seedlings when reforesting?
Their plan was to replant in prime soil and assume a 50% attrition rate. They would send out 10 plus individuals to over plant and assume a calculated loss rate.
Understand that mechanics of a dibble bar or spud it creates an opening in soil by compacting earth. After you insert a seedling, you have to over compress the soil to fill the void. This will leave voids of air and cause water to move around the compacted soil.
Do what is easy, or do what produces results ...
Their plan was to replant in prime soil and assume a 50% attrition rate. They would send out 10 plus individuals to over plant and assume a calculated loss rate.
Understand that mechanics of a dibble bar or spud it creates an opening in soil by compacting earth. After you insert a seedling, you have to over compress the soil to fill the void. This will leave voids of air and cause water to move around the compacted soil.
Do what is easy, or do what produces results ...
cavey
5 year old buck +
I came out of the gate a little harsh on the dibble - but,
I have a KBC dibble bar - its nothing to brag about other than being heavy, which after weeks of planting is not a plus... some of the the flat dibble bars are marginally better but they are still also heavy and I have used them both. What may have been a option in the 1930 in the CCC camps is not the best option today. As mentioned the forestry service bought them in volume but, one guy buying one tool that will last for years may want to get something better if he knows that option exists. I would rather use a hoedad then a dibble and I would not use a hoedad. That is all just a personal opinion of mine born out of the frustration using them before and after using good tree spades. I have never used a plug dibble but that is a different animal. As a whole with tree bars if you choose to get one - buy the flat wedge ones - they work ok, and yes they are cheap but there are better options out there. If your going to plant a few hundred trees in your lifetime they are an inexpensive option. Where they do shine I guess is in rocky soils where you beat the hell out of them getting them into the ground, if you have anything other then rocky compacted soils and you want a quality tool that lasts for years get something better then a splitting-maul wedge welded to a T-bar. Their just crude heavy tools and when your tired your technique is going to go to hell fast leaving air pockets and exposed roots.
If you ever come to my place to help plant and I hand you the dibble bar - It means I dont like you - go away.
With a good HD tree spade your steps are still the same from kicking the duff to your final pull on spade. Make sure you get a spade that wont fold back on you when prying - your better off with a dibble then a cheap spade. You can pack seedlings tight once you get a feel for the soil voids - sometimes that means an extra stab and push pull per tree. But if you take your time you can get a good pack. Once you do enough and knowing that their your trees you'll do a better job. But as mentioned by Tree Spud about void spaces - they equal root death... that may not kill the tree but they are already stressed having been dug so that does not help. Plus if your spade is not deep enough your going to "J" root the seedlings .. so you have to make sure your getting your depth right matching the spade to the root per say or at least your plunge depth.
With pro grade spades you can set and pin the handles at geometry that works for you, the shorter handle length is faster to drive, and their easier to work one handed in a bent position. Coupled with the bags you can shoot seedling into the ground at a pretty good rate. They should last a lifetime without breaking - well maybe.
As far as those thick rooted older plants, for instance say Basswood, (try planting bareroot basswood once, "Cousin It" on a stick )- you'll end up digging them in. An auger will work better and faster there but that may not be enough. You can cut back some of the roots - but you'll dig them in by hand I guarantee it and you may have to splay out the roots in different directions with added digging.
The great thing I did find with the auger is the pile of dirt left around the hole - nice soft, ground up dirt to re fill the hole with.
I have a KBC dibble bar - its nothing to brag about other than being heavy, which after weeks of planting is not a plus... some of the the flat dibble bars are marginally better but they are still also heavy and I have used them both. What may have been a option in the 1930 in the CCC camps is not the best option today. As mentioned the forestry service bought them in volume but, one guy buying one tool that will last for years may want to get something better if he knows that option exists. I would rather use a hoedad then a dibble and I would not use a hoedad. That is all just a personal opinion of mine born out of the frustration using them before and after using good tree spades. I have never used a plug dibble but that is a different animal. As a whole with tree bars if you choose to get one - buy the flat wedge ones - they work ok, and yes they are cheap but there are better options out there. If your going to plant a few hundred trees in your lifetime they are an inexpensive option. Where they do shine I guess is in rocky soils where you beat the hell out of them getting them into the ground, if you have anything other then rocky compacted soils and you want a quality tool that lasts for years get something better then a splitting-maul wedge welded to a T-bar. Their just crude heavy tools and when your tired your technique is going to go to hell fast leaving air pockets and exposed roots.
If you ever come to my place to help plant and I hand you the dibble bar - It means I dont like you - go away.
With a good HD tree spade your steps are still the same from kicking the duff to your final pull on spade. Make sure you get a spade that wont fold back on you when prying - your better off with a dibble then a cheap spade. You can pack seedlings tight once you get a feel for the soil voids - sometimes that means an extra stab and push pull per tree. But if you take your time you can get a good pack. Once you do enough and knowing that their your trees you'll do a better job. But as mentioned by Tree Spud about void spaces - they equal root death... that may not kill the tree but they are already stressed having been dug so that does not help. Plus if your spade is not deep enough your going to "J" root the seedlings .. so you have to make sure your getting your depth right matching the spade to the root per say or at least your plunge depth.
With pro grade spades you can set and pin the handles at geometry that works for you, the shorter handle length is faster to drive, and their easier to work one handed in a bent position. Coupled with the bags you can shoot seedling into the ground at a pretty good rate. They should last a lifetime without breaking - well maybe.
As far as those thick rooted older plants, for instance say Basswood, (try planting bareroot basswood once, "Cousin It" on a stick )- you'll end up digging them in. An auger will work better and faster there but that may not be enough. You can cut back some of the roots - but you'll dig them in by hand I guarantee it and you may have to splay out the roots in different directions with added digging.
The great thing I did find with the auger is the pile of dirt left around the hole - nice soft, ground up dirt to re fill the hole with.
cavey
5 year old buck +
They are my go to tools, like a good Tina grafting knife, felco 8 hand pruner or a Silky saw (which I dont own yet). I actually have the carbon steel Hiballer with right and left kickers and the Oval D handle cut down and rotated a few degrees for me. Well worth the purchase at the time. Biggest pain was the brushpro stuff is Canadian and at the time I had to pay customs/tax plus shipping to get them. Back then I was planting a lot and could justify the purchase - now I would buy them just knowing how well they work. Tree planting off the planter by hand is always a pain - so anything that aids getting trees into the ground faster without killing you is a plus. The wolverine spade is like a tank and works great for bare root hardwood seedlings - I would not want to stab an underground power line with it but for those larger root systems it work great. The blade is strong and you can pry without fear of snapping the handle. All three really work well together.
The Fishman
5 year old buck +
I am just going to add this to the conversation. Everyone has their favorite tool, but it looks like all of the tools will get the job done. From looking at studies, researchers have not found a significant difference between shovels, dibble bars, hoedads, posthole diggers, or augers. Your results may vary, but across several studies they generally concluded that planting failures using these tools can probably be traced to improper planting technique or improper handling of the seedlings prior to planting and not the tool in use. Poor field results with different planting tools are not the result of the tool in use but rather the technique used or more likely the manner that the seedlings were handled prior to and during the planting operation.
Here are the studies and a short summary if you are interested.
Comparing Seven Planting Tools for Container-Grown Longleaf Pine Seedlings – The researchers compared the JIM-GEM KBC dibble bar, JIM-GEM OST dibble bar, Terra Tech Styro 8 dibble stick, Copperblock Styroblock, container seedling tube dibble, hoedad, auger, and shovel. They found that “For practical purposes, the type of planting tool in the current study did not affect root-system architecture on either site, at least for the first 15 months after planting. We concluded that none of the planting tools in general were superior to the others and that how well seedlings are handled and the care taken to plant them may be more important than the tool used.”
Comparison of Planting Bar and Hoedad Planted Seedlings for Survival and Growth in a Controlled Environment – They found “Survival, first- and second-year height, groundline diameter, first-year root weight, and first and second-year growth was found to be the same. There were no differences between the dibble and hoedad, and these were not different from the check, which was a planting hole made with a posthole digger.” They stated that “Human nature to take the easiest path often results in improper seedling management such as wind exposure of roots, short root pruning and improper seedling placement (depth and position) by the tree planters. The result is poor seedling performance. Resource managers responsible for planting should look at storage, planting technique and handling of seedlings rather than the instrument used to make the hole when trying to determine the cause of failures in planting operations.”
How Planting Method, Weed Abatement, and Herbivory Affect Afforestation Success – They found “Our study shows that both the short-term (1 year) and longer-term (3 years) main effect of planting method (dibble-bar versus auger) on seedling survivorship and growth was insignificant when averaged across the five test species of deciduous trees.” They also stated that “Thus, our data suggest that any concerns about compromising the survivorship and growth of planted seedlings by choosing the wrong combination of root stocktype (potted versus bareroot) or planting method (dibble-bar versus auger) may be unwarranted.”
The Effects of Planting Tool on Planting Productivity and Survival of Longleaf Pine Bare-Root Seedlings – These researchers found that survival at the end of one year did not differ between implements on individual sites or overall on both sites. Survival on site A was 85 percent with shovels and 86.25 percent with dibbles. On site B, mean survival was 71.88 percent with shovels and 71.46 percent with dibbles. Overall survival was 78.44 percent with shovels and 78.95 percent with dibbles. They state “Hand planting was accomplished successfully with both shovels and dibbles and no differences were detected between implements in planter productivity, seedling survival, or height growth initiation.”
Here are the studies and a short summary if you are interested.
Comparing Seven Planting Tools for Container-Grown Longleaf Pine Seedlings – The researchers compared the JIM-GEM KBC dibble bar, JIM-GEM OST dibble bar, Terra Tech Styro 8 dibble stick, Copperblock Styroblock, container seedling tube dibble, hoedad, auger, and shovel. They found that “For practical purposes, the type of planting tool in the current study did not affect root-system architecture on either site, at least for the first 15 months after planting. We concluded that none of the planting tools in general were superior to the others and that how well seedlings are handled and the care taken to plant them may be more important than the tool used.”
Comparison of Planting Bar and Hoedad Planted Seedlings for Survival and Growth in a Controlled Environment – They found “Survival, first- and second-year height, groundline diameter, first-year root weight, and first and second-year growth was found to be the same. There were no differences between the dibble and hoedad, and these were not different from the check, which was a planting hole made with a posthole digger.” They stated that “Human nature to take the easiest path often results in improper seedling management such as wind exposure of roots, short root pruning and improper seedling placement (depth and position) by the tree planters. The result is poor seedling performance. Resource managers responsible for planting should look at storage, planting technique and handling of seedlings rather than the instrument used to make the hole when trying to determine the cause of failures in planting operations.”
How Planting Method, Weed Abatement, and Herbivory Affect Afforestation Success – They found “Our study shows that both the short-term (1 year) and longer-term (3 years) main effect of planting method (dibble-bar versus auger) on seedling survivorship and growth was insignificant when averaged across the five test species of deciduous trees.” They also stated that “Thus, our data suggest that any concerns about compromising the survivorship and growth of planted seedlings by choosing the wrong combination of root stocktype (potted versus bareroot) or planting method (dibble-bar versus auger) may be unwarranted.”
The Effects of Planting Tool on Planting Productivity and Survival of Longleaf Pine Bare-Root Seedlings – These researchers found that survival at the end of one year did not differ between implements on individual sites or overall on both sites. Survival on site A was 85 percent with shovels and 86.25 percent with dibbles. On site B, mean survival was 71.88 percent with shovels and 71.46 percent with dibbles. Overall survival was 78.44 percent with shovels and 78.95 percent with dibbles. They state “Hand planting was accomplished successfully with both shovels and dibbles and no differences were detected between implements in planter productivity, seedling survival, or height growth initiation.”
cavey
5 year old buck +
Fishman is right... any tool will work if used right... its just a speed thing for me. With a good tool you can do it right faster with less fatigue. Care and handling is everything but does play into the tool selection. The longer you have the trees and they are not in the ground the more problems you will have. Planting 100 is fun but hand planting 2000, 3000 or more alone can be a pain and good tools make a difference. Im sure in the study, assuming its a controlled study, the techniques were perfect for each tool used. And I would not argue that each tool used by an experienced planter, in a controlled study with limited volume, each tool would end up having the same survivability results. Improper handling and poor planting kills trees and that is a point well made.
Letting your bareroot trees dry out -- air out - even a tiny bit gets most of them. Wind exposure even when bulk braking, root trimming and grading for a few seconds can even dry the roots enough to put your trees in root shock especially on low humidity days - always have a spray bottle near you. When you receive them - immediately inspect them and re wet up the roots - bundled 50 or 100 count trees need you to do more then just surface spray or spray into the box to drip down. Roots in the center of the bundles can get bone dry even when water is dripping off the outside of each bundle. I have never been a fan of soaking trees for a day before planting or even long periods before planting that can wash off soil (roots should never get that dry in the first place - its a salvage method to save horribly handled trees and walking with 5 gal buckets filled with trees and water is a slow way to plant - works if you have limited numbers of trees) - gel dipping them may help I've only done that a half dozen times or so and I cant tell if it really matters. In the planter boxes there is always water but that ends up being a muddy mix and that is a pure volume thing. Leaving your boxes staged out in the out field in direct sun or storing under tonneau covers or unvented toppers during planting or transport can cook off your trees fast. A lot of people kill off their trees before they even get into the ground -- tool or no tool. Ive seen guys go to lunch and forget that the sun moves only to come back to stashes in direct sun light.
Use the tool you have, barrow or can afford, and do it right (care & handling) - but dont be afraid to invest in something nicer if you can justify it... it does make a difference
Letting your bareroot trees dry out -- air out - even a tiny bit gets most of them. Wind exposure even when bulk braking, root trimming and grading for a few seconds can even dry the roots enough to put your trees in root shock especially on low humidity days - always have a spray bottle near you. When you receive them - immediately inspect them and re wet up the roots - bundled 50 or 100 count trees need you to do more then just surface spray or spray into the box to drip down. Roots in the center of the bundles can get bone dry even when water is dripping off the outside of each bundle. I have never been a fan of soaking trees for a day before planting or even long periods before planting that can wash off soil (roots should never get that dry in the first place - its a salvage method to save horribly handled trees and walking with 5 gal buckets filled with trees and water is a slow way to plant - works if you have limited numbers of trees) - gel dipping them may help I've only done that a half dozen times or so and I cant tell if it really matters. In the planter boxes there is always water but that ends up being a muddy mix and that is a pure volume thing. Leaving your boxes staged out in the out field in direct sun or storing under tonneau covers or unvented toppers during planting or transport can cook off your trees fast. A lot of people kill off their trees before they even get into the ground -- tool or no tool. Ive seen guys go to lunch and forget that the sun moves only to come back to stashes in direct sun light.
Use the tool you have, barrow or can afford, and do it right (care & handling) - but dont be afraid to invest in something nicer if you can justify it... it does make a difference
cavey
5 year old buck +
You will like it. It is the beefiest tree spade I could find. Has a nice wide blade and has lasted without issue for many many years. I had it in my hands today in fact and almost took a pic of it. I use it like a dibble bar - same technique.
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