I don’t grow any chestnuts, but it is interesting how you plant on clay.
I have always lived on light soil. Our trees were always planted with a hole around the tree to collect moisture.
The last few years I have run out of land to plant apple trees, so I created mounds of dirt in low areas. This year, the worst drought in 50 years has hit, and those mounds have quickly dried out. The best growth is a mound with a hole ( imagine a donut shape) on top of the mound in those formerly wet areas.
The ‘donut’ collects what little rain we get or the buckets of water I carry about every 4 days.
Sorry to steal the thread, but just a different planting method on different soils.
For trees that depend on a tap root and are on well drained sites, I wonder if air pruning is the best thing for long term survival. Maybe even on clay if the tap root needs to penetrate the clay. I don’t know what chestnuts natural root system looks like.
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Sandbur,
I think it is more a function of how arid the region is and how many levels of air pruning you want to do. I've seen some air pruned trees with 3' rootballs when they were planted in their final location. They needed heavy equipment to remove and transport them. Not practical for high volume wildlife trees but the technique is not limited to 3 gal containers. Large in-ground bags can also be used.
Well drained soils are not an issue if water is available in the top few feet of soil for a full size tree. Remember, as long as water and nutrients are in reach of the root ball, it is much more efficient at uptake. It is probably a combination of both rainfall and soil type that matters. There are a few areas of the country where I would not use this system and they are areas that are prone to prolong drought with soil types that allow the top 3' of water to dry out.
Like everything else, nothing is free. In most places, the tap root is only important to a tree when it is young. It has a very inefficient root system because so much energy is put into the tap root. This is to allow at least some root tips to get down far enough to get water when the tree and root system is tiny. When we grow them in containers up to 3 gal, we eliminate that need in most climate/soil types by caring for them. The benefit is a much faster growing tree with a much more efficient root system that does not have the sleep, creep, leap when field planting.
Keep in mind that apples (on clonal root stock) have no tap root and have a much less efficient root system when planted, so if you can get them to grow in your soil type, a tree from an air pruned system would do much better. Granted the planting technique may be different. I often buy clonal rootstock and put it in 3 gal RB2 containers and grow it out and graft it. Those trees will do better when planted than directly planting the clonal rootstock.
As for clay soil, you don't need a tap root to penetrate clay. As long as you hand-rake the sides of the planting hole if dug with an auger, there is no problem with lateral root tips penetrating the clay. They do it quite quickly. Here, we can get a lot of rain in the spring, so I take care that chestnuts are not drowned, but we can have quite dry summers. I've never had a root pruned tree die due to lack of water in the summer that was planted from a 3 gal RB2. Our clay soil only dries out in the top few inches. I did a lot of experimenting and here is what I found:
- Planting trees from 18s is a waste of time. Very few survive here.
- Planting trees from 1 gal RB2s has good survival rates. Most trees survive, but few flourish.
- Planting them for 3 gal RB2s works great. Almost all survive, and most flourish.
Keep in mind that none get supplemental water or much after care because I planted them in high volume.
Direct seeding can be a great tools as well, but it has its down side too. When direct seeding, you get a slower growing tree, because there is less energy from the less efficient root system and resources are more limited than a well cared for container environment. Any care requires a field trip, versus caring for a hundred trees on your deck. More importantly, the quality of the tree is a roll of the dice. With sexual reproduction, you get seeds with a large variety of potential. You may get a fast growing tree or a slow one. You have to put a lot of energy into planting and protecting the seedling in the field with tin cans and tree tubes, especially with chestnuts or other high energy nuts that rodents like. Then you may end up with a marginal tree by chance. With a root pruning container system you can cull trees.
I start with many more nuts than I need. Some will never germinate (wasted protection effort when direct seeding). Then, some of the seedlings will really grow stronger than others in the 18s. When I transplant to 1 gal RB2s, I cull and only take the best seedlings. When I transplant again to 3 gal RB2s, I have another opportunity to cull. So, at planting time, the best and brightest have risen to the top. Unlike in nature where the resources play a role, resources are unlimited in a container system so poor performing trees are performing poorly because of genetics, not a lack of resources.
BOTTOM LINE:
Each technique has advantages and disadvantages. You simply need to match the technique to your conditions and situation. In my case, starting trees indoors under lights in root pruning containers scratched a cabin fever itch for habitat. It allowed me to care for hundreds of trees at a very low cost per tree at my home for the first growing season or two. Because of the indoor start, the first growing season was extended as well. My farm is an hour and a half from my home, so I could never have provided good care for direct planted seedlings. The results was much bigger faster growing trees much sooner at a lower cost with a lot of learning and fun along the way.
Thanks,
Jack
Thanks,
Jack