Favorite methods for weed control / young tree maintenance?

bigbendmarine

5 year old buck +
Know there's a "tube vs wire cage" thread going, and some general maintenance tips buried in a number of threads on the forum but after doing a search didn't find a single thread dedicated to young tree maintenance (appreciating tips will vary a bit depending on fruit vs nut, tube vs cage, etc).

My reason for posting is that I have approximately 100 young trees living that I planted within the past 3 years and want to do maintenance on them in the weeks ahead before warmer temps start tree and leaf growth.

I have all mine (dolgo crabs, chinese chestnuts, kieffer pears, sawtooth oaks) in 5' tubes but for the purpose of this thread, I would ask forum members WHAT METHOD OF PROTECTION AND WEED CONTROL MEASURES HAVE YOU GROWN WITH TIME TO MOST PREFER, appreciating that some will recommend removing tubes / using cages.

Maybe to help keep the thread focused I would ask members who've tried multiple methods what have you settled on as best all around, and if you could speak to weed control maintenance it would be much appreciated as I've seen rocks mentioned as a barrier, various fabrics / materials, organic material (leafs / pine needles), weed spray, combination, etc... all shared in various threads.

Looking for this thread to be a time-saver for me and anyone else who might be looking for a "best practice" method versus tackling tree loss and / or time consuming additional work caused by painful trial and error (for example I'll pulling a fair amount of weeds that have grown in tubes I've been using this past year and see it compromised growth on some of the trees even if still living).

PICTURES THAT ILLUSTRATE YOUR PREFERRED METHOD ARE ABSOLUTELY WELCOMED! Know there will be some redundancy with other threads and hope that doesn't cause too much heartburn. If I failed to find a near identical thread, TOTALLY understand if someone just wants to share a link pointing to it / not re-spin the issue.
 
I put down a 4'x4' piece of weed barrier fabric. I also spray around the perimeter of the fabric.
 
Ideally I like to spray before planting or use weed barrier. But I've had good success using a piece of cardboard to shield seedlings when spraying after planting. I know others have "made" spray shields out of pvc or other material. Recently I've been planting pines with no weed protection. I'm expecting slower growth but higher success rates as the grass/weeds shelter my young seedlings. This is on droughty sand.
 
I have a small gatorade bottle "less its bottom" taped over my backpack sprayer nozzle. Very little chance of over spray.

I haven't found a weed barrier I like. Lumite will allow a few weeds to grow through and it will girdle your tree if you don't keep enlarging the hole. Plastic seems to give and not girdle the tree but deer and other critters poke holes in it when they step on it. Years ago Brushpile said deer won't walk on big pieces of plastic like 20'X20' but I never tried it.

I did experiment with 2 pieces of 10' X 10' squares of plastic. I put mulch over one and left the other exposed. The extra mulch made no difference in growth.
 
Recently I've been planting pines with no weed protection. I'm expecting slower growth but higher success rates as the grass/weeds shelter my young seedlings. This is on droughty sand.

I have quite a few Norway spruce planted from the last several years. Some I have sprayed around and some I have done nothing, leaving them to fend for themselves in high grass, woods, etc,. Some have been bareroot and some have been plugs. The trees that I have done nothing to have actually fared the best. Nice and green and just as much growth as the trees I sprayed around. I think the grass and weeds do shelter the younger trees.

I have noticed the opposite with my American Plum, Red Osier Dogwood and Elderberry. These all did better without the competition.
 
I certainly have not tried all methods. I'm not a fan of using herbicides around young trees unless there is no good alternative. I've tried pine needles and bark mulch. I found they break down quickly and require ongoing maintenance. They can also be attractive to small rodents and such for nesting and I don't want to attract them to my trees. I like using air and water permeable landscaping material covered by quarry stone. Some folks are concerned about the heat that can be retained by stone but that is not a big issues in my environment. It is something to consider based on location. The stone holds down the landscaping material so there are not staples needed. They don't break down and need replaced. They are inexpensive. I just take a loader full from our road maintenance pile when I plant trees.

I don't know if this qualifies as a "best practice", but it where I ended up after quite a few hundred trees. I use it with both tubes and cages. I don't use it for all trees. I simply plant too many. There is not doubt that trees with weed barriers grow faster for me than those without.

Thanks,

Jack
 
This is my 5th straight year for planting trees and I've planted all types from apples and pears to sawtooth oaks and Chickasaw plums. I started out using concrete reinforcing wire for cages on all my fruit trees based on what I had read on forums. After years of fighting weeds and realizing that caging trees and bush hogging around them just doesn't work (at least not for me), I've settled on tubing everything I plant and spraying around them glyphosate and some residual type product such as Goal (oxyflurofen) or Dual (metolachlor). Tubes do require maintenance. They do have to be cleaned out from time to time but It's easy to spray around them and that makes weed control easier for me.


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This is my 5th straight year for planting trees and I've planted all types from apples and pears to sawtooth oaks and Chickasaw plums. I started out using concrete reinforcing wire for cages on all my fruit trees based on what I had read on forums. After years of fighting weeds and realizing that caging trees and bush hogging around them just doesn't work (at least not for me), I've settled on tubing everything I plant and spraying around them glyphosate and some residual type product such as Goal (oxyflurofen) or Dual (metolachlor). Tubes do require maintenance. They do have to be cleaned out from time to time but It's easy to spray around them and that makes weed control easier for me.


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I forgot one more thing that I've found to be very important. I try to plant my tree planting area in ladino clover (Durana for me) prior to planting the trees. The clover really helps keep the weeds down.


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simazine diluted to 2%. if growth is present round up 2% and Simazine 2% and avoid that spray near any foliage. Just spray the simazine early as it's a pre emergent. Mid season hit it again.
 
Ditto for simazine and RUP. I have a dual headed fan tip wand that will spray a 4-5' band - I drove along the rows with my Ranger and sprayed a band just before the trees leafed out in the spring. After the first year I added in some Oust XP. I used Pendulum once and while it worked and the yellow color was nice to see where you had sprayed, it stained everything yellow. I have ~15 acres planted, thus speed and ease was critical.

Weeds will come back in summer, but after two years I started letting them go. I added ~700 5' tubes and ~150 cages as the high deer density was an issue - especially on a little tree with no weeds to hide it.

edit: BTW - I am a big fan of 5' "Max grow" tubes.
 
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I do it differently than a lot on here, for weeds around fruit trees the first few years early spring I like to mulch, I keep it a few inches back from the trunk but mulch a few inches deep everything inside the remesh. I know some on here have had trouble with mice&voles I have not in my area. I buy cheap mulch and use a bag to a bag and a half per tree same when planting new tree. It keeps weeds down and really helps keep moisture in the ground. After the fruit trees are well established I let clover and grass grow right up to them, all my fruit trees are planted 99% just for wildlife.
For conifer trees I like the weeds/grass/thorns growing up around them blocking them from a deer's view as much as possible when they are smaller to help keep them from getting eaten on and mostly from bucks beating the shit out of them. Caging conifers would not be practical for me at all.
 
Being in North Florida / HOT deep south I've used mulch and definitely think it's helped save many of my trees during extreme heat stress / dry periods.

Wife and I operate a business at a bottom of a hill (Tallahassee's about the only place with hills in FL ;) ) and just about anytime I want I can bag up a full truck bed load of leaf litter that washes down into our office parking lot. Mulching about 4" deep around the outside of my tubes seems to work relatively well / holds off weeds OUTSIDE of the tubes for a few months. I've kept the mulch outside my tubes to avoid having it against the trunks and without the much, ultimately I have blackberry brambles and other weeds compete a bit inside the tubes.

A few times I've been lazy about gathering up leaf litter and have mowed circles around my tubes to use grass as a mulch... in areas with relatively clean grass it's worked ok BUT QUICKLY learned the painful lesson that in areas the least bit weedy I made my weed problem around the tubes MUCH worse "planting' weeds in a blown mulch around the tubes. Won't be making that mistake again.
 
This is my 5th straight year for planting trees and I've planted all types from apples and pears to sawtooth oaks and Chickasaw plums. I started out using concrete reinforcing wire for cages on all my fruit trees based on what I had read on forums. After years of fighting weeds and realizing that caging trees and bush hogging around them just doesn't work (at least not for me), I've settled on tubing everything I plant and spraying around them glyphosate and some residual type product such as Goal (oxyflurofen) or Dual (metolachlor). Tubes do require maintenance. They do have to be cleaned out from time to time but It's easy to spray around them and that makes weed control easier for me.


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What did you use for tubes?
 
What did you use for tubes?

I have used different types of tubes over the years but lately I've been getting them from TreePro. You can call them and get "seconds" that are slightly "off color" or have a few extra ventilation holes. I get the kind that ship flat as a sheet and you roll them up around the tree and zip tie them to your stake. These are easier to clean-out I think.


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following
 
I have opted for wire cages, mulch, and round-up with good success. Like you, I am looking for easy and effective weed control / growth promotion, and this works best for me.

Unlike you, I don't a hundred new trees to nurture. I have not had good luck with tubes, but reading some suggestions here, that might be the way to go for your quantity. I like cages, but they take more time and money to install than tubes. Frankly, I might try tubes again myself based on some of the suggestions above. Thanks for asking the question!
 
I've done mulch and switched over to pea pebbles. Now I have more to plant and I'm thinking Lumite then the stone on top. I know it's over kill, but I might do both. I have trouble with voles, not real bad, but enough to make me switch from the mulch to stone . I put too much hard work into the fruit trees to let voles take me down. I also have the 4 ft welder wire to protect from deer. I won't take the welder wire off until the trees are prob 6-7 years old. IMO, don't short cut when planting fruit trees. It will come back to haunt you.
 
I've done mulch and switched over to pea pebbles. Now I have more to plant and I'm thinking Lumite then the stone on top. I know it's over kill, but I might do both. I have trouble with voles, not real bad, but enough to make me switch from the mulch to stone . I put too much hard work into the fruit trees to let voles take me down. I also have the 4 ft welder wire to protect from deer. I won't take the welder wire off until the trees are prob 6-7 years old. IMO, don't short cut when planting fruit trees. It will come back to haunt you.

Voles are the reason I gave up on fruit trees. But way back then I didn't even know what one was until it was to late.
 
What is the difference between vole and mole?

bill
 
I felt compelled to test this theory of growing trees in cages after I read many positive comments on different communities. I have been using tree tubes ever since I started planting back in 2003. So I wanted to give it a try on this. I used this around my bur oak seedlings and the results were not that pleasing. Trees in the cages looked pretty beaten up and struggling. The leaf size of the trees in tubes was twice the size of the caged once. The tree tubes also won the race for height results over cages- It was about 11 inches for tubes and 9.5 inches for cages. Nothing made me happier on experimenting with cages, so I would always prefer tube over cages.
 
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