Greenhorn Questions on Tree Seedling Plantings

[blueKYstream]

I am considering planting some seedlings (maybe 300 max), likely persimmon, pawpaw and/or chinese chestnuts. From what I understand, deer feed heavily on the leaves of chestnuts, so some sort of protection is a must. It's hit or miss in some areas I've read with persimmon. Deer don't eat Pawpaw leaves. For that reason, I was going to buy tubes I suppose to protect the chinese chestnuts. I'm debating it with the persimmon. I know a friend has seen a persimmon while mowing, but I haven't seen any (though that doesn't mean they aren't there).

Those tubes are what I consider to be expensive at about $3 a 5' tube per 100 for Miracle tubes. I was considering going with the Protex tubes at about $0.40 less. I hear they are more work though both in assembly and maintenance. After that, the stakes would be about $1 per stake if I were to buy 1/2" PVC conduit at Lowes or Home Depot. All said and done, that's probably $1,000 for 300 tree seedlings, tubes and stakes. That's a tough pill to swallow. I have a boatload of tobacco sticks. Would those be suitable to use as stakes?

My questions: Has anyone had luck (I'd consider 30-50% survival) with planting chestnuts, pawpaw or persimmon without protection? Are there hardy trees or shrubs that can be planted for deer that they wouldn't wipe out (not interested in oaks or hickories because I have plenty)? This is a stupid question, but I'm thinking unless I fence it off, planting with cattle is a bad idea. I'm open to other tree suggestions if they don't require protection (except I have plenty of oaks and hickories).

 

[Northbound]

I'm not experienced with those tree types but when it comes to tubes, conduit grade is unneeded. Standard schedule 40 pvc is fine and I actually prefer the thinner schedule 20 if you can find it. More flex which I belive encourages a stronger tree since it will sway in the wind slightly.

If it's a tree that requires a permanent stake such as a dwarf apple, then I'd t-stake it right away

 

[ruskbucks]

I'm don't know where those trees rank for browse preference. I think that them eating the buds after the leaves fall is something to check into also. They might still eat the buds but not the leaves. I wouldn't plant any trees in with cattle. I have seen what the do, there is usually nothing left except for a few large trees.

 

[yoderjac]

The cost of protection is certainly high. My experience has been that location is a factor in browse pressure. Trees I've planted in the understory of thinned pines show little of any browse pressure while 100% of my unprotected chestnuts in fields have been hit. Deer don't kill them usually. They simply take a bite as they walk by feeding on the clover. As a result they end up being bushes. I'm not sure those will ever produce nuts. My persimmons and pawpaw don't get hit.

Tubes are sufficient protection for my chestnuts. I do use cages for things like apples. I tried the unprotected route with the chestnuts. I thought deer will kill some percentage and the rest would survive. Instead, when planted in the open, the deer did not kill hardly any but they browsed the central leader off 100%. I now tube them.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bill]

Not to be a Debbie downer but you may be setting yourself up for some serious frustration. Rome wasn't built in a day. It takes a lot to dig 300 holes, plant 300 trees, tube and stake said 300 trees. Especially if you don't live on the land.

If you're only expecting 30 to 50% survival I'd recommend only planting 30 - 50% of the 300 seedlings and taking the time to protect them all well, including a weed block.

 

[yoderjac]

As Bill knows, I generally grow my own seedlings in root pruning containers and use a tractor auger the diameter of the container to dig the holes. With these root maker trees, the root ball fits right in the hole. I then use landscaping material and either a tube or cage depending on the type of tree. With no help, I can plant about 8 trees a day. Unless you are just using a dibble bar, Bill is right, it is a daunting task.

Another thing I've seen guys do who are planting trees in a contiguous area is to use a Gallagher-style E-fence to protect the entire group.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[ksgobbler]

Fwiw buddy and I planted persimmons on the same day. His property is 30 miles from me. I tubed and he didn’t. Nearly all of mine survived and some are really thriving. Deer destroyed his. I couldn’t get pawpaws to take. Started with 25 and currently have 2 left (may only be one we will see in a month).

I use the protex tubes. Once I figured them out it isn’t that bad. I buy them from forestry suppliers inc on sale and use a free shipping coupon. Stakes I made an epic mistake (pun intended). Went with 5 ft plastic coated steel stakes. I am buying fiberglass since so many have busted. I tried conduit but struggled to get them into our dirt.

 

[blueKYstream]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I asked the question, because I wondered if I was setting myself up for frustration/failure having never done it. If I had to protect all of them, I would definitely cut back from 300. I just figured a max of 300, because I wanted a little diversity and dates that fruit/nuts ripen. The state nurseries generally offer bunches in 100 for dang near the same price as a bundle of 10 or 50. Even without the protection, I figured it might be worth the chance for the price. All else equal, if I could get 30-50% without protection and an estimated 80% with protection after 4 or 5 years, I'd consider getting all 300 and planting unprotected. If I only got a small survival percentage, then I would buy 50-100 of one tree and protect it. Perhaps planting up to 300 tree is wishful thinking...I don't know. I live about an hour away from the planting location. I could probably get help one day and then I could take a day or two off work to finish. For what it's worth, I think I'm going to try to use a drill with an auger attachment and/or a shovel.

The schedule 40 pvc is a good suggestion. It might be the way I go if the tobacco sticks are likely to lead to failure. I've had a large pile laying around the barn for the last 20 years. I think they are 4 ft long. After sinking them in the ground 4-5 (?) inches in clay soil, that may be too short.

I thought pawpaws would be good, because deer don't bother them from what I understand, but other animals might. I planted one last year (the extent of my planting experiences). The voles dug a hole under it, It was leafed out when I saw it last summer, but I don't know if it has survived since then. Yoderjac, I think I read where your persimmons weren't getting hit, so that's partly why I asked if I could maybe get away without tubing them. Chestnuts I know I'll have to tube from what you all have said.

Ruskbucks, will cattle bother tubes?

I'll just stick to the other half of the property if so. Are the Protex tubes garbage or would the Tree Pro Miracle Tubes a better option? I was thinking 4 ft for persimmon if needed and 5 ft for chestnuts.

 

[ksgobbler]

I have my persimmons in the 4 ft tubes. They came out the top and the deer have hit them hard. Should’ve put 5 ft on them.

 

[blueKYstream]

Fwiw buddy and I planted persimmons on the same day. His property is 30 miles from me. I tubed and he didn’t. Nearly all of mine survived and some are really thriving. Deer destroyed his. I couldn’t get pawpaws to take. Started with 25 and currently have 2 left (may only be one we will see in a month).

I use the protex tubes. Once I figured them out it isn’t that bad. I buy them from forestry suppliers inc on sale and use a free shipping coupon. Stakes I made an epic mistake (pun intended). Went with 5 ft plastic coated steel stakes. I am buying fiberglass since so many have busted. I tried conduit but struggled to get them into our dirt.

Sorry about your stake issues. Hopefully the fiberglass ones work out. You had some valuable information. Thanks for sharing your experiences with persimmons, stakes and the tubes. It sounds hit or miss with survival rates, so it's likely worth tubing the persimmons (and chestnuts). If I have to tube pawpaws, I'll just drop those from the list and focus on persimmons and/or chestnuts. I've heard not great things about the bamboo stakes. I'll add the plastic coated steel stakes to the list. I'm a little concerned I'd hit a bunch of rocks and roots with pvc. If the fiberglass are as good as pvc, I'd go with that so I don't have to bother cutting all those stakes. Are you going with 3/8" for your 5' tubes or 1/4"?

 

[Native Hunter]

Cows can be very destructive. I hope you have good luck with this project, but I do have concerns about the cows.

Best wishes.

 

[blueKYstream]

Cows can be very destructive. I hope you have good luck with this project, but I do have concerns about the cows.

Best wishes.

Fortunately, the cattle are on half of the property. Based on the suggestions, I will focus on planting only on the other half that does not have cattle. I appreciate your feedback!

 

[Lee Haakenson]

Plan on 50% sucess rate even with tubes. Tobacco lathe work if in great shape - i've used them. Most are white oak. I wouldnt use them if they aren't. Ive also used the gray pvc conduit, which is my preference.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

 

[blueKYstream]

Thanks for the information Lee and everyone. I called to get a quote on tubes for the seedlings. I'm going to dump pawpaws from my list. I don't want to overextend myself. I will order stakes as well and save myself the replacement cost in the long run as well it sounds like.

After talking with Tree Pro about ordering tubes, he now has me considering "named" cultivars for better or faster production. I wouldn't be able to plant nearly as many of course, but I would know what I'm getting so to speak. I didn't consider pear trees, because not many state nurseries carry them. He had me thinking of ordering just 10 each of chestnuts, persimmons and pears. Some would be grafted ($18) and others not ($15). Each set of 10 trees would be about $150 depending on number of grafted varieties and the deal would include tubes. I would make some stakes with pvc conduit from the local hardware store (30 stakes I can handle). Not knowing if persimmons are male/female (from state nurseries) does bother me some. He said that the persimmons they have will produce faster and cover longer drop times. If the pear trees aren't high maintenance and prone to dying from fireblight, I will get some of those. I'm up in the air on the chestnuts as to whether it's "worth" going with the named variety or if the chinese chestnuts will work as well. You guys have all been extremely helpful, so I want to thank you! If you have more opinions, I'd love to hear them.

 

[Needmorebrush82]

After planting 1000's of trees I will just tell you this. Protection is expensive but so is your time and effort after you baby them along and have to replant when they get destroyed. If you are using a dibble bar 300 trees is a task you can accomplish in a day. If you are tubing and planting with a dibble bar you can drop that number to 100 a day. Driving the post is the easy part, bending over to suck the zip tie tight starts to add up about the 60th tube and by the end of the day you will be creeping along. If I am using a dibble bar we use the dibble bar that day and do nothing else. A guy out of practice can put 500 in the ground with marginal at best soil. Better soil will speed you up but most of us come across clay and rocks. Can you do more than 100 in a day while tubing sure, do you want to be functional tomorrow and like the work you did? I prefer to be functional and like the work that I did instead of trying to do more. If you are planting something like rootmaker 18's or nativ nursery size plugs you can plant and tube 100 in a day too because you are not digging that much. Going up to gallon size trees you can plan on cutting that number down to 50 a day. I use plain black electric 1" pvc pipe for my tubes or in rocky areas I use a tpost and then you have a $10 investment in your tree, tube, tpost. I tried going cheap and honestly you will find you are pissing money away at a rapid rate. I now only buy the miracle tubes 500 at a time for $2.05 a piece and split them with a friend or another member on here. With shipping it will average $2.40 a tube and you have something that will do the job without fail and you can get reject tubes even cheaper if you ask. I realize it sucks to bite the bullet, but buy in bulk to make it affordable in the long run so that you can keep doing it and buy quality so you only have to do it once. The last thing you want to see is all of that hard work slowly taken away along with the money spent. Good Luck, trust me it will get easier as success comes!

 

[H20fwler]

Like everyone has said without protection the wildlife you are wanting to help eat up or nip the tops off your young trees as fast as they can.
As far as protecting new trees you are better off planting fewer with protection and adding more as you can afford it then loosing the bulk of your seedlings right off the bat. One thing I have found is that if I plant unprotected seedlings in natural cover like tall grass and thorn patches survival rate is surprisingly high.
Another tree/shrub to look at adding is American hazelnut/filbert, in my area the deer don’t browse hardly at all on them and everything eats the nuts as soon as they hit the ground.

 

[blueKYstream]

Like everyone has said without protection the wildlife you are wanting to help eat up or nip the tops off your young trees as fast as they can.
As far as protecting new trees you are better off planting fewer with protection and adding more as you can afford it then loosing the bulk of your seedlings right off the bat. One thing I have found is that if I plant unprotected seedlings in natural cover like tall grass and thorn patches survival rate is surprisingly high.
Another tree/shrub to look at adding is American hazelnut/filbert, in my area the deer don’t browse hardly at all on them and everything eats the nuts as soon as they hit the ground.

I am learning a lot here. I plan to reduce my original plan from 300 seedlings. Based on what's being said, I think I'll stick to somewhere between 30-100. I will tube and stake all seedlings. Some of the areas I plan to plant them are along food plots. I have started edge feathering some fields, so that will provide some good spots to plant. Thanks for the guidance from everyone, because you're helped me realize that doing it right and spending the money from the start is the best way to achieve what I want.

I was going to plant hazelnuts, but my head was spinning with all the possibilities. If I can squeeze a handful of hazelnut shrubs in with wherever I order, I will do so. I think if I'm planting persimmons, knowing I have mostly female trees is worth it to me I think. I should probably order from a reputable nursery for those. I hadn't even considered pears until now. Do I have to fence those even with a tube? Tree Pro said they have a 4.5" or 5" tubes (can't remember now) for pears. Are there a couple varieties that are "best"? Finally, chestnuts...I've read mixed success rates with the Dunstan. I just don't want to do all the work and then 5 years later lose them all to blight, an ice storm or something else. I can get Chinese Chestnuts from the KY state nursery for a reasonable price if that's the best variety for my situation, but I'd have to order the other trees from another source. Since I'm reducing the # of tubes drastically, I will pony up a little more cash if a certain variety is healthier/less maintenance, perhaps grows a bit faster and/or spreads out the drop time (better hunting opportunities).

Is Tree Pro a good source for these or should I go with another online nursery for these trees?

I have a tendency to overanalyze decisions like these. For that I'm sorry :)

 

[H20fwler]

Dunstans are very nice chestnuts and I have quite a few of them planted they even produced nuts last fall....but they are fussier to grow than the Chinese. The Chinese just seem more forgiving and to grow better for me.

As far as pear trees I think Keiffer, Moonglow and Olympic would make a good cornerstone for a pear orchard. Wildlife group also sells some really good DR pears. I would screen and cage pears right off the bat.

 

[yoderjac]

I am learning a lot here. I plan to reduce my original plan from 300 seedlings. Based on what's being said, I think I'll stick to somewhere between 30-100. I will tube and stake all seedlings. Some of the areas I plan to plant them are along food plots. I have started edge feathering some fields, so that will provide some good spots to plant. Thanks for the guidance from everyone, because you're helped me realize that doing it right and spending the money from the start is the best way to achieve what I want.

I was going to plant hazelnuts, but my head was spinning with all the possibilities. If I can squeeze a handful of hazelnut shrubs in with wherever I order, I will do so. I think if I'm planting persimmons, knowing I have mostly female trees is worth it to me I think. I should probably order from a reputable nursery for those. I hadn't even considered pears until now. Do I have to fence those even with a tube? Tree Pro said they have a 4.5" or 5" tubes (can't remember now) for pears. Are there a couple varieties that are "best"? Finally, chestnuts...I've read mixed success rates with the Dunstan. I just don't want to do all the work and then 5 years later lose them all to blight, an ice storm or something else. I can get Chinese Chestnuts from the KY state nursery for a reasonable price if that's the best variety for my situation, but I'd have to order the other trees from another source. Since I'm reducing the # of tubes drastically, I will pony up a little more cash if a certain variety is healthier/less maintenance, perhaps grows a bit faster and/or spreads out the drop time (better hunting opportunities).

Is Tree Pro a good source for these or should I go with another online nursery for these trees?

I have a tendency to overanalyze decisions like these. For that I'm sorry :)

As far as the American persimmons go, have you done an inventory on your land yet? By far, the best bang for the buck for me has been to convert natively growing male persimmons on my land to female. This produces more soft mast faster and at a very low cost than any thing else I've done with trees. Here is a thread from when I first started doing that with lots of pictures: http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.php?threads/sex-change-operation-transfered-from-qdma-forum.5547/

Especially if you are in KY, you should talk to Cliff England (England's Nursery). He has been a great help to me with persimmons and pawpaw. He is very knowledgeable. I've planted hundreds of chestnuts from Dunstan nuts. Only a few have died. I've seen no real signs of blight on them. We also have Allegheny chinquapins growing natively here. They are in the chestnut family. I've collected the small nuts from them and propagated them. They are susceptible to blight, but unlike American chestnuts, it does not stop them from producing nuts. They generally take more of a bush form. They produce nuts when pretty young. When they get blight (or fire), they die back to the stump and then resprout and quickly produce more nuts.

There are lots of Chinese chestnut varieties. Auburn has patented a few with some good wildlife characteristics, AU Buck III and IV. III drops is touted to drop mid-September through mid-October and IV is touted to drop mid-October through mid-November. Just a couple to consider. I think the patent has been licensed to the Wildlife Group.

Probably the tree in the chestnut family I'm most excited about right now is Castanea seguinii. It is commonly called Chinese Chinquapin, Dwarf Asian Chestnut, Seguin and Everblooming Chestnut. I propagate most of my chestnuts from nuts myself. I've been trying to get some of these going for a couple years now. I finally bought a few trees from the Wildlife Group last winter and put them in 3 gal RB 2 containers. They grew on my deck and produce nuts the first season I had them. I'm now propagating those nuts: http://www.habitat-talk.com/index.p...uts-question-transfered-from-qdma-forum.5553/. These don't get blight. They produce small nuts similar to Allegheny chinquapins and can produce multiple crops each year. They are generally bush like, but as you can see near the end of that thread, shredder posted some information that some 90' tall have been found in China. What is not to like, a tree that can produce its multiple crops of chestnuts in its second growing season, is blight resistant, and can reach 90'. Wow! I'm sure it is not a fit for all zones, but it is worth a hard look.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[blueKYstream]

Dunstans are very nice chestnuts and I have quite a few of them planted they even produced nuts last fall....but they are fussier to grow than the Chinese. The Chinese just seem more forgiving and to grow better for me.

As far as pear trees I think Keiffer, Moonglow and Olympic would make a good cornerstone for a pear orchard. Wildlife group also sells some really good DR pears. I would screen and cage pears right off the bat.

Keiffer and Moonglow sound familiar. I will keep those 3 suggestions in mind if I can order trees from the same source. I've heard of Bartlett pears as well. Not sure if that's another good option or not. The Dunstan's were fussier meaning they were picky about sun/shade or something else? Thanks for sharing your experience with both trees!