Planting hardwoods - plugs or bare root?

[j-bird]

Ok - I'm going to start by saying I'm tired of screwing around with gathering acorns, and germinating them and then transplanting them in small numbers. It's a pain and I just don't feel like I am doing enough volume to really amount to anything. I want to start planting them by the 100's not the dozens.

As such I am looking for alternatives. I have found a few places (Itasca & NCR) where I can get oak "plugs" or I can get bare root trees from my state DNR (100 trees for $30).

I know you guys love to plant conifer plugs - but have you had much success with oaks? I hear how you can plant 4a plugs by the 100's, but the oaks come in a larger size. Has anyone planted these vs bare root and have any advice? In the few 100 I will buy a year the plugs will be far more expensive, but if they are that much easier and have a high success rate I may be willing to spend the money.

 

[SD51555]

If you're buying a few hundred, you might as well get 500. The price for 100 vs 500 is almost the same.

Bur example from Itasca:

200 = $518
500 = $315

Doesn't make sense to me, but that's what it is. You can always mix and match species to get your total count to 500. If nothing else, buy what oaks you need and donate the rest to PF or something like that and write them off.

 

[j-bird]

For 500 in bare foot it would cost me $150 but my concern is the planting time and survival rate. I think plugs would be much faster planting but I don't know if the hardwood plugs survive as good as or better than the bare root. That is more what I am looking for. I would mix them up but I have zero exp with plugs and bare root are a PAIN! Especially in any real volume.

 

[nwmn]

I've gotten bur, white and red oaks from itasca the last 3 years. I've noticed the burs made it through the drought year, but I haven't done a very good job keeping tabs the last year. I'll know more in a few weeks if the ones from last year made it. I haven't seen much for growth yet and a lot of them are tubed. I guess I'm playing the 3 year game; sleep, creep, leap.

 

[SD51555]

For 500 in bare foot it would cost me $150 but my concern is the planting time and survival rate. I think plugs would be much faster planting but I don't know if the hardwood plugs survive as good as or better than the bare root. That is more what I am looking for. I would mix them up but I have zero exp with plugs and bare root are a PAIN! Especially in any real volume.

I'd call it a wash. With a plug, you're getting a stronger seedling but using a potentially poorer planting method (vs old fashioned hole-dig). You could hedge your bet, and not use the planting bar and do it old fashioned with a shovel or a small earth bit on a drill. Bigger concern I'd have with oak is, what's to keep the deer from vacuuming up every one of those seedlings? I couldn't find a dogwood on my property that hadn't been nipped over the winter. Those critters amaze me with their ability to find a lone plant in a sea of green and eat it.