Maximizing Chestnut Growth with Rootmakers - Transfered from QDMA forum
- Thread starter yoderjac
- Start date
Goldentriangle
A good 3 year old buck
Looks great Jack, I am starting my chestnut project this coming winter/spring. I plan on using many of these techniques, especially the rootmakers.
Thanks
Scott
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks
Scott
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Scott,
Best of luck with your project. If you have questions along the way don't hesitate to ask. Particulars may depend on your location, but much translates from area to area. I'm really liking the multiple transplant method with the root makers. That tree spent one season in rootmakers and was about 6' tall at the end of the season. The tube is 5'. I didn't measure it, but I'd estimate it at 8 3/4' after one season in the ground. That is about 2 3/4' of growth in one season in height in my native soils. You can also see from looking at earlier pictures back up the thread, it also picked up significantly more leaf mass. I wish it was easy to see how much caliper it picked up this season, but I don't want to mess with the tube.
Thanks,
Jack
Best of luck with your project. If you have questions along the way don't hesitate to ask. Particulars may depend on your location, but much translates from area to area. I'm really liking the multiple transplant method with the root makers. That tree spent one season in rootmakers and was about 6' tall at the end of the season. The tube is 5'. I didn't measure it, but I'd estimate it at 8 3/4' after one season in the ground. That is about 2 3/4' of growth in one season in height in my native soils. You can also see from looking at earlier pictures back up the thread, it also picked up significantly more leaf mass. I wish it was easy to see how much caliper it picked up this season, but I don't want to mess with the tube.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
For the direct seeding, one of the biggest keys is to protect the nut. There are several threads I've seen that show different ways to do this. I've had better luck starting them under lights but much depends on your local conditions. I think you are wise to try multiple methods to see what works best for you.
Thanks,
Jack
TreeDaddy
5 year old buck +
Starting my 5th year planting chestnuts in Rootmaker system
I use RM 18s (154 this year) ProMIx HP media and start them outdoors first week in february
I transplant them to 1 gal RBII @three months and then 3 gal RBIIs @ 3 months again
They get transplanted to field December/January
Anyone else getting started this year?
bill
I use RM 18s (154 this year) ProMIx HP media and start them outdoors first week in february
I transplant them to 1 gal RBII @three months and then 3 gal RBIIs @ 3 months again
They get transplanted to field December/January
Anyone else getting started this year?
bill
DJN
5 year old buck +
Just last week, I ordered (25) 1’-2’ Chinese Chestnut from Cold Steam Farm Nursery (as well as 20 persimmon, and 10 each of Pawpaw, American Plum, Dolgo Crabapple, and Hazelnut from the local SWCD). This is my first go of planting bareroot for wildlife (have done 100s of B&B/container ornamental trees/shrubs for landscape customers, but that’s a whole different ballgame), and reading all these posts of rootmaker containers and grafting and everything else has me feeling a little intimidated. I’m planning to just put them in what I feel would be permanent spots with cages/weed control and see what happens. Fingers crossed.
DJN
5 year old buck +
Hahahaha! Sounds like a good plan. Thanks Bill
Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
You are truly the Chestnut whisperer Jack! Very impressive tree there my friend!! I read this entire thread and have 2 questions if you don't mind sir.Here is the same tree this year:
It is hard to tell from the picture but there are actually a couple catkins on it!
Thanks,
Jack
1) At what point do you take the tree tubes off? I am guessing the tree tube in this picture is still in place as protection from mice and deer rubs.
2) How do you remove the tree tubes when trees are this big? I ask because I don't see a seam in the tube and appears you need to cut them off. I desperately need to reuse tubes so I cage them with wire mesh when the tree exceeds the 5' tubes by about 1 foot so I can not cut them off and throw the tubes away.
Ok a 3rd question came to mind lol
3) Most things grown in pots are stunned when transplanting (clearly yours do not) so I couldn't help but wonder why you don't just start the seeds in the 3 gal RM's as opposed to transplanting them 3 times.
Thanks
Daron
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Daron,
I probably wont' take my tubes off until the trees are quite mature. They can become problematic filling with leaves and twisted water sprouts. Wasps love them as well. Once the trees are well out of the tops, I'm not worried about deer browsing but deer rubbing. I've had deer rub a few trees enough to damage them badly. They don't seem to do that with the tree tubes on the. Last year, I went around and slit all of my tubes top to bottom and removed them. I cleaned them all out. Once the trees are well established, the stake is doing more harm than good as it reduces flex in the wind, even pvc stakes. But by now, the tree is sturdy enough to support the tube easily. So, I removed the stakes, wrapped the tubes back around the tree, and used zip ties to loosely connect the ends of the tubes so they can expand even further than their original diameter. Even though the tubes are just hanging there and not completely covering the trunk in some cases, their presence seems to deter my deer from rubbing them. At some point they will outgrow the diameter of the tubes but by then they will likely be too large for deer to be attracted to rubbing them (I hope). At that point, I'll remove the tubes completely.
For my apple trees, I use remesh to cage them. I have way too many chestnuts to have the time to money to cage them all. If I was planting fewer chestnuts, I would have caged them rather than tubing them. Cages are better than tubes for chestnuts in my opinion. Lots of things can go wrong with tubes. Too hot, too dry, too wet, etc. However, in my environment, I needed some kind of browse protection and tubes were my only cost/time effective option.
The problem with growing trees in smooth pots is that the tap root will j-hook or circle when it hits the container. This is especially problematic for chestnuts because the naturally have a long and very fast growing tap root. Proper root pruning requires a series of containers. The 18s are designed to prune the tap root when it hits about 4". Whitcomb's research showed that when a root is pruned, it stimulates upstream branching and most of that branching occurs in the 4" above the prune. So, when you prune that tap root at about 4" using 18s, you get copious root branching in the container. One reason you use a very well drained medium with lots of air gaps is because over time the roots will fill those gaps. Eventually an 18 will be hard to top water. You will pour water in and it will just sit there and slowly be absorbed unlike when you first plant the nut and water immediately runs through the medium and out the holes in the bottom. You have to keep pouring water in a bit at a time until the 18 is finally saturated and it begins to drip out of the bottom. This is because the container is full of roots.
The more branching, the more root tips. The more root tips, the more efficiently the tree can uptake water and nutrients provide they are available where the roots can reach them. So, since you are providing the water and nutrients while in containers they tree gets a maximum amount. Also, because it is not spending energy making a long tap root and long secondary roots with few root tips, that energy can be put into more top growth in addition to the branching roots.
So, when an 18 is full of roots it needs to be transplanted. The 4" rule says you want a container that allow for no more than 4" of growth in all directions. You could go directly from an 18 to a 2 or 3 gal RB2, but I find I got best growth going to a 1 gal RB2 and then in late spring or early summer transplanting again into a 3 gal RB2. Keep in mind this also depends on your growing season. In my case, I started trees indoors under lights in the winter. I tried different approaches, but I did best when the trees filled the 18s (12 to 16 weeks after germination) and were ready for transplant to 1 gal RB2s about the time of our last threat of frost. I would then remove the nuts (to minimize attraction to rodents) and transplant them and slowly acclimate them to my deck. One big mistake I've made is to push it and sun scald them. I now put trees on my lower deck which is shaded by my upper deck for a month or so before moving them to my upper deck where they get more sun.
My very best chestnuts can fill a 3 gal RB2 by the end of one growing season and be ready for transplant. Many won't be quite ready with my growing season here and I'll overwinter them in a cold room (or you can mulch them in) and keep them on my deck for a second growing season. If I started them in 3 gal RB2s, the tap root would grow to the bottom of the container and then be directed to one side and out a lower hole and be pruned. Only the lower 4" of that root would see significant branching. So, instead of having a 3 gal RB2 full of roots at planting time, only the lower portion of the RB2 would have heavily branched roots.
I've experimented with planting directly from 18s and 1 gal RB2s. Very few trees planted from 18s survived. Keep in mind that I don't provide any supplemental water once planted in the field. While the tree has a very efficient root system for its size coming from an 18, the roots can only access what they can reach. The root system is just too small and a couple weeks with no rain will kill it.
Most all of the trees I've planted that filled 1 gal RB2s survived, but didn't really thrive. Just about all the chestnuts I've planted from 3 gal RB2s have not only survived, they have thrived.
One last note here. The primary reason I start them in the winter under lights is culling. Trees, like anything else will perform according to a bell shaped curve with a small number of tree being fast growers, a small number dying or being very poor growers, and most being in the middle. I start with many more nuts than I need trees. At each transplant stage, I cull the laggards. This means the trees that actually make it to the field are the best and brightest. I tried to go for sheer volume when I first started and planted everything. I now have lots of stunted trees from that original plant that will never perform well. It was wasted time and money. Trees I planted in subsequent years have far surpassed them. So, keep this in mind when starting out.
Thanks,
Jack
Troubles Trees
5 year old buck +
That is a solid and very thorough answer Jack, this is why I ask questions!
I am operating on a pretty small budget for what I am trying to accomplish but I will strongly consider investing in some RB's. Like tree tubes they are worth the money but they are expensive for bigger goals. I am on several Habitat Management pages on FB and figured at some point people on there were taking tree tubes off and didn't have new plantings to use them. So I threw it out there to buy someones used tree tubes, I had to drive 125 miles one way to southern Pennsylvania but one of the guys offered 125 tubes for free! He bought a large bulk of them and then sold the land so he never used the last 125 of them. I still gave him $50 for some sort of compensation but that is the only way I could afford tubes at the time. I have around 400 trees that should have tubes on but only have 125 so this year I will move them to other trees and replace with a wire cage. I am truly amazed how much difference the tubes make side by side with untubed trees, a real difference maker as much as using RB's to propagate seed.
Thank you so much for the explanation Jack! I will make notes of that and apply it this year bud. Again thank you sir!
One of these days I need to read this entire thread, but think I got enough out of it, and a few others to do some things right.
I started my first dunstan chestnut project this year with 1# (50 seeds) from Chestnut Ridge. Started the cold stratification process back in early December, but did not have my peat quite wet enough, and the crisper drawer was a little too cold. Started over early January with the same seed, and just checked a few of them, and so far, all that I checked have started radicals, so I plan to direct plant several of them this weekend while I finish pruning our fruit trees.
Appreciate all of the information that has been shared!
I started my first dunstan chestnut project this year with 1# (50 seeds) from Chestnut Ridge. Started the cold stratification process back in early December, but did not have my peat quite wet enough, and the crisper drawer was a little too cold. Started over early January with the same seed, and just checked a few of them, and so far, all that I checked have started radicals, so I plan to direct plant several of them this weekend while I finish pruning our fruit trees.
Appreciate all of the information that has been shared!
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
While Rootmaker makes some very functional and convenient root pruning container systems, there are alternatives. I had success with my own DIY 18s one year. They require more attention to watering but they work for the first stage: http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.p...ntainers-diy-transfered-from-qdma-forum.5542/ . I found larger containers to be more difficult to do yourself. You can use canvas type bags, but you need to find a way to hang them as the roots will grow though the bottom if it is sitting on the ground. If you hang it in some way or put it on a wire rack so it gets air flow below it, they can work. You could make them yourself.
There are also other brands of root pruning containers. Some work well, some not so much. The key is to pick a design the follows the Whitcomb research. If you are on a budget, I would also start small growing fewer trees. There are a lot of mistakes you can make with cold stratification and then again not getting the watering right with young trees. Those are the biggest risk areas for most. Starting small lets you learn and work out the kinks. I did one year of small and then went big. The first year of big was great, but subsequent years were up and down with mold and other issues. All in all, it was the most economic way for me to get a high volume of trees. I'm pretty old so I needed to go big pretty quickly to enjoy the fruits of my labor. If you are young you can start small. Also, I'm trying to do QDM, so I needed the volume to feed deer. If you don't have sufficient scale to do QDM, you can work on a small scale as it only takes a handful of trees to act as an attractant.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Did you cold stratify them in the fridge? Most folks direct seed in the fall and let nature take care of the cold stratification. You don't have your USDA zone listed in your profile. I suppose if you are far enough north, there may be time for them to cold stratify, but it takes 60 to 90 days. If you are that far north, I wonder how chestnuts will do?
Thanks,
Jack
