yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I think a lot depends on soil type. I have heavy clay. If I did what the OP did, I would drown the tree in the spring when we get rain and starve it of water when summer comes. The reason for that is the difference in infiltration between clay and the amended medium. During spring, it would be a pond. Just as the clay would make that whole a pond in the spring, water would evaporate from the hole in the dry summer while the clay retains moisture well.
Most of the trees I've planted have, I've grown form seeds and nuts in a root pruning container system. My final transplant stage is a 3 gal RB2 contianer. They unwrap from around the dense fibrous root system. The medium is promix which has high infiltration. Here is what I worked out over time.
1) Select a location where ground water will not run into the hole (don't plant in a dip).
2) Use a tractor auger that is just slightly larger in diameter than the container.
3) Dig the hole about 3' deep.
4) Scarify the sides of the hole with a hand-rake.
5) Backfill first with quarry stone and then a mix of medium and native clay.
6) Backfill to a height where about 1" of medium will stick out of the hole
7) Cram the root system into the hole. It is a tight fit and I often have to stand on it with my feed on either side of the tree to seat it.
8) Mound native clay over that 1" of medium above the natural soil line. This help keep any groundwater out.
How it works in my area:
We get reliable spring rain, so a lack of water is not an issue. Any rain that infiltrates the medium continues to infiltrate through the quarry stone to the bottom of the hole, so the roots don't sit in water. Because the hole is so tight, and the rootball is completely undisturbed, the tree begins growing immediately. By the time our dryer summers roll around the lateral roots have grown into the clay which retains water well. Trees have smart root growth. You can't put the roots in water like ponding, but roots can grow to a water source. We see this with trees growing along streams and ponds and such. So, the water ponding under the tree is never an issue as the tree grows.
Bare root trees have a year of sleep, year of creep, and finally a year of leap. When planting them in clay, I don't use any amendments. I just backfill with native soil.
Amending soil may have much more benefit in sandy soil. In this case you don't have the large infiltration differential between clay and medium. It probably introduces some OM into the soil.
Thanks,
Jack
Most of the trees I've planted have, I've grown form seeds and nuts in a root pruning container system. My final transplant stage is a 3 gal RB2 contianer. They unwrap from around the dense fibrous root system. The medium is promix which has high infiltration. Here is what I worked out over time.
1) Select a location where ground water will not run into the hole (don't plant in a dip).
2) Use a tractor auger that is just slightly larger in diameter than the container.
3) Dig the hole about 3' deep.
4) Scarify the sides of the hole with a hand-rake.
5) Backfill first with quarry stone and then a mix of medium and native clay.
6) Backfill to a height where about 1" of medium will stick out of the hole
7) Cram the root system into the hole. It is a tight fit and I often have to stand on it with my feed on either side of the tree to seat it.
8) Mound native clay over that 1" of medium above the natural soil line. This help keep any groundwater out.
How it works in my area:
We get reliable spring rain, so a lack of water is not an issue. Any rain that infiltrates the medium continues to infiltrate through the quarry stone to the bottom of the hole, so the roots don't sit in water. Because the hole is so tight, and the rootball is completely undisturbed, the tree begins growing immediately. By the time our dryer summers roll around the lateral roots have grown into the clay which retains water well. Trees have smart root growth. You can't put the roots in water like ponding, but roots can grow to a water source. We see this with trees growing along streams and ponds and such. So, the water ponding under the tree is never an issue as the tree grows.
Bare root trees have a year of sleep, year of creep, and finally a year of leap. When planting them in clay, I don't use any amendments. I just backfill with native soil.
Amending soil may have much more benefit in sandy soil. In this case you don't have the large infiltration differential between clay and medium. It probably introduces some OM into the soil.
Thanks,
Jack
