CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Just curious, are you going to start topping / cutting back the central leaders on the older batch of trees or just let them go... Im in the same boat, next year I'm going to transplant a bunch out to the fields and am waiting till winter to cut them back (topping the leader) and use that for scion wood. I just have a hard time cutting all that beautiful growth off.
Trees will be headed back right when I dig them for planting. That's what I did last time. If I need some scion wood maybe earlier but usually I have plenty of scion wood.
Sometimes it is tough but Ben once told me on my old thread on the qdma forum how important it is. I planted all my trees in 2012, posted on the thread after with pics, none of the trees were headed back. I went back the following weekend and headed them all back after his comment. It has to be done, but I'm not cutting a 7' feathered tree down to a 48" whip. I'll take off maybe 20%.