Discounted Rootmaker Containers for sale

[yoderjac]

As many of you know, I have been growing trees from nuts and seeds in rootmaker containers for many years. For those not familiar, here is one of many of my threads on using them: https://habitat-talk.com/index.php?...h-rootmakers-transfered-from-qdma-forum.5556/

I went hog wild wild and started trees in the winter indoors under lights and grew hundreds of trees per year. I bought containers by the case wholesale from Rootmaker. The time has come for me to scale back my high volume operation. I may still mess around with a handful of trees, but I'm now looking for good homes for most of my containers.

Some of the containers have never been used as it was less expensive to buy a full case wholesale than fewer individual containers retail. Even the used containers are in pretty good shape and have lots of seasons of life left in them.

HERE IS THE DEAL:

1) I don't want to deal with cash or checks, so you need to be able to send money via PayPal.

2) I don't want to try to calculate shipping, so you will pay actual shipping after the fact.

3) For the containers themselves, YOU PAY WHAT YOU THINK THEY ARE WORTH TO YOU.

I want to make sure everyone who wants to grow trees from seeds and nuts gets a fair shake at these, so first come first serve. PM me if you are interested. Because you are paying actual shipping, tell me how many of what containers you want in the PM. My wife has graciously agreed to pack and ship them. Once she ships them, she will give me the receipt and I'll PM you with shipping cost. You then Paypal me funds to cover the actual shipping plus whatever the containers are worth to you. I'll do my best to honor any special requests. My primary objective here is to promote habitat management for those who want to grow trees from seeds and nuts rather than to make money on the containers. Any money I do receive above the shipping will be plowed into my habitat projects.

I have:

Rootmaker Express Trays and 18s that go in them.

I have 1 gal Rootbuilder II containers.

I have 3 gal Rootbuilder II containers.

I also have some small roottrapper bags that fit in cement blocks.

The Rootbuilder II containers will be shipped unassembled.

I will be going through my stock as time permits, so it may be a while until I can send stuff. I started today with the 3 gal Rootbuilder II containers. I 'll have some of these available now. I'll update the thread as I go through more and get them cleaned up a bit.

This is the first group of Rootbuilder II containers that I started cleaning up.

I sprayed them down with a pressure washer to get the big stuff of of them. These have all been used but are in reasonable condition.

This is pretty representative of 95% of this batch of containers.

A few of them have been chewed on by squirrels when I was growing chestnuts. They are still usable. I don't plan to sell these but to include them as extras, but if I miss noticing one or two are chewed, don't complain.

Some of these containers have the plastic clips in them. The last batch I got from rootmaker had these clips and I also found some similar clips on amazon. Prior to Rootmaker selling the containers with clip, they just said to use cable ties and cut them with dikes when you want to open the containers. These clips are more convenient but both methods work. No guarantee if clips will be in them.

So, PM me if you are interested. Fall is approaching!

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Ok, I finally got my act together and we got the first shipment sent today. It is not easy to box this stuff up. It took 2 boxes for the first order.

I now have some 18s and express trays, some 1 gal Rootbuilder II and 3 gal Rootbuilder II containers cleaned up. I'll try to get some pictures of them.

Now that I have the first one under my belt, here is how the process is working.

1) You PM me with how many of what you want and your shipping address. You agree to pay the actual shipping charges.

2) I'll get things together and my wife will ship it out when she gets a chance.

3) I'll PM you with a copy of the shipping receipt and my Paypal address.

4) After the package(s) arrive, you check them out and make sure you are happy.

5) You then send me the cost of shipping plus whatever you think the containers are worth to you (your decision) via Paypal.

Also, if you happen to be in the Central or Northern Virginia area and want to save on the shipping, let me know and perhaps we can work out a hand-off.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[TreeDaddy]

How many 3 gal RB II containers do you have?

Thanks,

bill

 

[yoderjac]

Bill,

I haven't counted them, but I know I had more than a case. I just shipped out 18 of them.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Bill,

I counted up the 3 gal RB II containers after the last shipment. I have 77 used ones left and 9 that have never been used. I did not count the bottoms. I know a few have cracked but are still usable. With a little epoxy they would be fine. I'll try to ship any cracked ones to folks as extras.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Here are the pics I promised:

This is a typical 1 gal Rootbuilder II. Some have the connectors rings the others don't. Like the 3 gal, you can use cable ties.

This is a typical express tray and one of the cells. The express trays are made of fairly brittle plastic, so you need to be careful with them. The cells, on the other hand, seem to be injection molded and are very tough. They will probably still be usable 20 years from now.

I have a few express trays that are broken like this. They are still largely usable. I won't intentionally send these for requested trays, but I will included some of them as extras in some requests.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I also found some 8" RootTrapper bags. These have all been used at least once. They were originally stitched on one side. You cut that to remove the plant. To reuse them you simply staple the seam back. I've done that for the second use and it seems to work well. You can probably get 2 or 3 more uses of these. I don't plan to sell them. Instead, I'll just include some as extras in other orders. They work particularly well with cutting that have buds far apart like elderberry. You need to get 2 buds under the medium and 2 above. These bags are tall enough for that. Since there is no tap root on a cutting, they can be the first container for cuttings. The cups for 18s are not deep enough to start many cuttings.

This is pretty representative of the condition of these bags. You can see the seam on the right that you staple for reuse. By the way, these fit nicely inside cement block for support.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[westonwhitetail]

I plan to buy some root stock and try grafting apple trees this winter. Are the 18's a good setup for that or are they better for starting chestnut trees and oaks? Thanks.

 

[yoderjac]

Root pruning containers are a system that have two advantages, keeping large roots like tap roots from J-hooking or circling the container, and increasing up-stream branching of the root system increasing the number of terminal roots that uptake nutrition. This increases the growth of the plant.

Growing Seedlings:

So, how you apply the system depends on what you are trying to do. For example, I started a bunch of crab apples from seed and used them for rootstock for grafting known varieties. I wanted some full size trees. For this, I started the seeds in 18s indoors under lights. This air prunes the tap root at about 4". These are good for about 16 weeks. By then they are full of roots and you need to transplant into larger air pruning containers like 1 gal or 3 gal. Studies show most of the upstream branching occurs in the first 4" above the prune, so you want to use successive containers that allow for about 4" of root ball growth. In my climate, I typically start trees from seed or nuts indoors under lights and transplant from 18's to 1 gal RB2 containers about mid-April when our last threat of frost has passed and I can take them outside. By mid summer, my better trees will be ready to transplant into 3 gal RB2s. Depending on the tree development, I'll plant them the following spring from the 3 gal containers or transplant the smaller ones from 1 gal to 3 gal and keep them for another growing season on my deck.

Growing out clonal rootstock:

Clonal rootstock used for most apples has no tap root like a seedling. Instead, they act more like rooted cuttings. Another thing I've done is to buy clonal rootstock and put it in 1 gal or 3 gal RB2 containers. I have grafted some the same year and grown them out on my deck. I've also grown the rootstock out for a full year, overwintered them, and then grafted the next year, kept them on my deck for another growing season and planted them in the field the next spring.

In General:

Using a root pruning container system helps with early root development. Unlike planting bare root trees or trees grown in smooth containers, you don't have the typical 1 year of sleep, one year of creep, and then the third year when they leap. Instead, they begin growing almost immediately when planted. With tree grown in a smooth container, you have to remove the medium and check for an prune any j-hooking or circling roots. Any roots you cut off, is lost energy to the plant and it takes a long time for the root system to reestablish. With a bare root tree, the roots were pruned by the shovel when the tree was extracted. Unlike bare root trees, trees grown in root pruning containers can even be planted in the middle of summer if you provide supplemental water as needed.

The Down Side:

I would hesitate to use a root pruning container system in arid environments where you can't provide supplemental water. For a wildlife tree, I want to minimize any maintenance. While a root pruned tree's root system is very efficient because of all the terminal root tips, It only has reach the size of the container when first planted. Planting when dormant is always best. If you don't have rain often and the soil dries out beyond the reach of the root system, you have a problem. Many tree species put a lot of energy into the tap root because it is critical during the first couple years to ensure it gets below the soil dry-out zone. In most areas, we can prune that tap root and get the benefits because we provide water and nutrients when it is in the container. So, unless you are in a particularly arid region, you can get a lot faster growth using this system. After the trees have been planted in the final location for a year or so, the root system grows enough to handle most reasonable drought conditions.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I plan to buy some root stock and try grafting apple trees this winter. Are the 18's a good setup for that or are they better for starting chestnut trees and oaks? Tha

One more point I forgot to make about using them for apple rootstock. They go directly into Rootbuilder II containers, but the size of the container depends on the size of the rootstock. You sort of spread out the roots as you add promix medium to the container. Most clonal root stock comes pruned at the top. For W&T bench grafting, you want to match diameters between the root stock and the scion. I got free scions from GRIN. The diameter of many of the scions was quite small, so I had to order the smallest diameter rootstock. The roots on those fit into 1 gal Rootbuilder II containers well. However, when I got more reasonably sized scions from my local orchard, I bought larger diameter rootstock. These fit much better iinto 3 gal Rootbuilder II containers.

I was pretty impressed by the root systems developed in these.

Here is an example of one of the projects I did with apples. I planted seeds in 18s, and then transplanted them to 1 gal and then 3 gal Rootbuilder IIs. I kept them on my deck for one growing season and then overwintered them. Before they broke dormancy I planted them in the field. The next spring I field grafted them at chest height. I wanted to see what, if any, apples they would produce below the graft. I believe this one was field grafted with Black Twig. If you look close, you can see the lower leaves are different than those above the graft. Because these are seedlings, they will eventually produce full size trees. You can see this tree is starting to produce a few apples even though the tree is far from its eventual size.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

I want to make sure that you guys on my home forum get first crack at this pay-what-you-want deal, so I'm gong to keep it here exclusively for the rest of the week. Next week, when I get back from the farm, I plan to post it to the Deer Hunter forum, so, if you want to be at the front of the line, PM me this week.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

The Roottrapper bags have now been spoken for. I sill have 18 cups and express trays, 1 gal RB2s, and 3 gal RB2s available.

 

[yoderjac]

I have come across a few more items. I've got a couple of the 32s propagation trays. These are not express tray. The cells are in a single sheet. I also found some solid and mesh flats. I'll take some pictures of these when I get a chance to clean them up.

 

[mike m]

Jack i would be interested in some trays and pots, also some 1 and 3 gallon pots, if you still have any available and can possibly do a hand off coming from maryland . thanks

 

[yoderjac]

Mike,

That can save a bunch in shipping cost. PM me and let me know how many of what you want and we can work out handoff details.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[mike m]

would like about 4 trays and pots of the 18's and a couple dozen1 and 3 gallons thank

 

[yoderjac]

Roger that. Where/when is a good time/place to meet for you? I work a few miles from Nation Harbor Mon-Weds, so that is a possibility. Or, maybe you're in northern VA from time to time.

Let me know,

Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Here is the pic of the solid and mesh flats. They are pretty representative of all of them:

 

[yoderjac]

Well folks, it looks like we're done with this! Someone has stepped up and asked for everything I have left. Thanks to the folks to whom I've already made shipments. I hope they are all happy with what they got and I hope they all make good use of them and get the same cure for cabin fever I got starting trees from nuts and seeds indoors in the winter under lights. It was a great learning experience for me. It is now time for me to step back and enjoy the fruits of those years of labor.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Knehrke]

I just finished the same process, gave away most of what I had, some to folks on here. Years of stuff accumulating, and now all I have are a few RM18, 1 and 3 gallon pots for tinkering around. It's nice to see stuff end up in somebody's hands who will use it rather than a landfill.