Nursery Tips when transplanting

[bigboreblr]

Any advice on having trees in a spot for a year or two?

IS it advantageous to grow up a tree for a year or two, then move it. Or wait until your spot is ready to buy young trees.

Rototilled my spot, then dug it out to rottiller deeper, then backfilled. Didn't amend too much. I wonder if mixing in fertilzer and lime is bad for the roots, so I didn't this go round. Hard to say with the extra bareroots this spring, I watered them almost daily due to experimenting with burying cuttings. Which the toringo crabapple did ok until I got a real bad dry and hot spell.

I am putting apple trees up in the adk hunting lease. Need to find spots where the logging skid steer wouldn't try to cut them. Like between big rocks. Also, scouting where to put them at the 450 acre brother-in-law's field. He's ok with it, just figuring out where to put them. Away from overspraying. There are 3 large brush islands there as well as thicker drainage ditches breaks, some 20 yards wide.

 

[AtomApple]

I think most will say, the sooner you can get them to the final location the better.

I also did not have enough spots ready, so I have a good number of trees nursing. I bought 50 rootstocks for my 1 st try at grafting. The nursery method wasn’t a bad idea, so I could see what grafts worked and what didn’t.

the original “deal” with the wife was I could keep 2 more trees in the back yard, but the other dozen need to find a home.

 

[yoderjac]

Any advice on having trees in a spot for a year or two?

IS it advantageous to grow up a tree for a year or two, then move it. Or wait until your spot is ready to buy young trees.

Rototilled my spot, then dug it out to rottiller deeper, then backfilled. Didn't amend too much. I wonder if mixing in fertilzer and lime is bad for the roots, so I didn't this go round. Hard to say with the extra bareroots this spring, I watered them almost daily due to experimenting with burying cuttings. Which the toringo crabapple did ok until I got a real bad dry and hot spell.

I am putting apple trees up in the adk hunting lease. Need to find spots where the logging skid steer wouldn't try to cut them. Like between big rocks. Also, scouting where to put them at the 450 acre brother-in-law's field. He's ok with it, just figuring out where to put them. Away from overspraying. There are 3 large brush islands there as well as thicker drainage ditches breaks, some 20 yards wide.

I've had success in putting young trees from the nursery in root pruning containers and giving them special care on my deck for a season to build a denser root system before planting in the field. It has worked well for me with clonal apple rootstock as there is no tap root.

 

[williams111]

Any advice on having trees in a spot for a year or two?

IS it advantageous to grow up a tree for a year or two, then move it. Or wait until your spot is ready to buy young trees.

Rototilled my spot, then dug it out to rottiller deeper, then backfilled. Didn't amend too much. I wonder if mixing in fertilzer and lime is bad for the roots, so I didn't this go round. Hard to say with the extra bareroots this spring, I watered them almost daily due to experimenting with burying cuttings. Which the toringo crabapple did ok until I got a real bad dry and hot spell.

I am putting apple trees up in the adk hunting lease. Need to find spots where the logging skid steer wouldn't try to cut them. Like between big rocks. Also, scouting where to put them at the 450 acre brother-in-law's field. He's ok with it, just figuring out where to put them. Away from overspraying. There are 3 large brush islands there as well as thicker drainage ditches breaks, some 20 yards wide.

If you do plant them in the garden/nursery for future transplanting I would suggest not leaving them there for more then a year. After 2 years I had 6-8ft trees with serious taproots. When I dug them to transplant I was strapped for time and definitely lost a lot of the taproot from the older trees. Surprisingly they did survive and seem to be doing ok. I prefer putting them in pots until I am ready to plant. You aren't restricted to planting only when the tree is dormant either when using pots. The only downfall is moving them back and forth in the spring/fall to overwinter in the garden where I heel the pots in.

 

[bigboreblr]

A bit of a turn of events. MY oldest son-in-law had a bit of a falling out with the place he was hunting. Girlfriend's family fighting over sme spot...... Was going to do habitat improvements this hunting season on the 450 acres. Plant apple trees, move a stand or two, and mowing a walking lane with-in bow distance of the big brush island in middle of the 450 acre corn/bean field. Ticks are insane there in the summer.

So, he will be hunting there once or twice this fall. Not sure what weekends. Not sure if snow will prevent me after hunting season.

 

[cavey]

Any advice on having trees in a spot for a year or two?

IS it advantageous to grow up a tree for a year or two, then move it. Or wait until your spot is ready to buy young trees.

Rototilled my spot, then dug it out to rottiller deeper, then backfilled. Didn't amend too much. I wonder if mixing in fertilzer and lime is bad for the roots, so I didn't this go round. Hard to say with the extra bareroots this spring, I watered them almost daily due to experimenting with burying cuttings. Which the toringo crabapple did ok until I got a real bad dry and hot spell.

I am putting apple trees up in the adk hunting lease. Need to find spots where the logging skid steer wouldn't try to cut them. Like between big rocks. Also, scouting where to put them at the 450 acre brother-in-law's field. He's ok with it, just figuring out where to put them. Away from overspraying. There are 3 large brush islands there as well as thicker drainage ditches breaks, some 20 yards wide.

Any advice on having trees in a spot for a year or two? Yes, no and maybe... kind of depends....

Is it advantageous to grow up a tree for a year or two, then move it. Or wait until your spot is ready to buy young trees? If the tree were in a pot when you bought it sure but a bare rooted tree is in shock and when you plant it. You lose a year to get it re established on its own roots - ripping it out again will re shock it again. I dont think you really gain anything and would be better off just direct planting your new tree in the spot when its ready (same time same place same tree). Kind of depends on what you buying in the first place.


In a spot for a year or two?? If you mean like as in a nursery I would say over all yes - especially if they are new grafted trees or small whips that gives them some protected time to flourish so to say. If they are 3/4" caliper bare root trees that you bought I would again say no - better to direct plant them instead of root shocking them twice.... if you have no other choice but to heal them in then - at least you would be keeping them alive - the end game is the question.

Stuff like is it a special tree? did you get a deal? was it free?? come into play sometimes so re re transplanting them happens, BUT its always better to direct plant a tree if you can provide the care it needs - when you cant then... then sometimes the Nursery approach works wonders..

I wonder if mixing in fertilzer and lime is bad for the roots? I would say it is horrible and un needed and even amending the soil has negatives unless your in some funky blow sand nutrient poor desert waste soil. Water is key - not to much but enough - your tree will grow in the soil its put into - if there are trees in the soil nearby surviving already then your tree will grow..... heavily amending the soil invites trouble namely insects and voles.

Their just trees dont over think it, protect and water them and they will grow, getting them into the ground 10 years ago is the correct answer everything else is just catch up....

 

[chummer]

I admire your wanting to plant in ADK but not sure it is worth the effort without full sun. I planted 7 trees in 2014 in a spot like you describe. They are still alive but way behind my other trees planted that year. I am finally able to cut everything around them this winter but not sure I would have ever got an apple with the 4-6 hours of sunlight They are currently getting.

 

[Hoytvectrix]

I suggest trying a Missouri gravel bed. We built one in about 1/2 a day and have been using it for planting bare root trees we are not ready to plant. The biggest resource is the sand or gravel. We had a sand bar from a recent flood that we used for our fill and some extra telephone poles for the walls. We put down landscape fabric at the base. It is probably one of the best things we've been doing for growing trees. This spring I will use it for starting chestnut and oak seeds.

 

[bigboreblr]

I admire your wanting to plant in ADK but not sure it is worth the effort without full sun. I planted 7 trees in 2014 in a spot like you describe. They are still alive but way behind my other trees planted that year. I am finally able to cut everything around them this winter but not sure I would have ever got an apple with the 4-6 hours of sunlight They are currently getting.

I dont have many spots with full sun, but got a few. My experiment will be very limited. 3 spots 2 or 3 trees a piece. Probably 2 antonovka grafted with dolgo and a B118 crabapple of some sort.

Time vs results. Throw n mow rye has been doing well.

hoyt,

That looks like a nice little setup. Just moved the trees last weekend and NY got a cold snap. Little weary of moving them again this year.

 

[Teeder]

I suggest trying a Missouri gravel bed. We built one in about 1/2 a day and have been using it for planting bare root trees we are not ready to plant. The biggest resource is the sand or gravel. We had a sand bar from a recent flood that we used for our fill and some extra telephone poles for the walls. We put down landscape fabric at the base. It is probably one of the best things we've been doing for growing trees. This spring I will use it for starting chestnut and oak seeds.

How deep is the gravel?

 

[Hoytvectrix]

How deep is the gravel?

We used sand and it is about 18 inches. We dug out below to give some extra depth before putting the landscape fabric down and filling it in.