Transplanting a potted tree....

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Yearling... With promise
I bought several dozen seedlings last spring from the state forestry store and planted all but one, which I had potted all summer. It's a white oak and now it's time to plant it. Any tips for a successful transplant? Anything to do to the roots?

Thanks.
 
If the tree was in a regular nursery type container (verses a root pruning container) you will need to check for circling and j-hooking roots and prune them by hand before planting. If you don't, the tree may do well when young, but eventually you'll have root constriction.
 
Does this mean pruning roots that have curved around after contacting the side of the container? Should I also break up the root ball by hand to separate the roots and then repack in fresh soil?
 
When a tree is grown in a regular container, the tap root will grow until it hits the bottom of the container. It will then follow the contour of the container. This can cause the tap root to circle around the container. Similarly secondary roots can wrap as well. On occasion, a taproot will hit the bottom of the container and reverse direction growing upward. This is called J-hooking. You want to prune any roots that circle or j-hook.

Bare root trees pretty much need transplanted when dormant. This is because the roots are cut when they are extracted and they need time for the root system to re-establish. This saying is a year of sleep followed by a year of creep, and finally in the third year they leap. One of the advantages of growing trees in root pruning containers is that the root ball is completely undisturbed. As long as there is supplemental water provided if needed, they can be transplanted anytime, not just when dormant and they begin growing almost immediately if transplanted during the growing season.

Trees grown in non-root pruning containers really depend. If the roots have not circled or j-hooked and they have minimal disturbance they can sort of act like trees grown in root pruning containers except that the root system is not as well developed. If you need to remove a lot of medium and prune a lot of circling roots, they can act more like bare root trees. The problem is that your really don't know until you extract them.

As for removing medium before planting, that really depends on the medium and your soil. In a case where your soil is heavy clay where water infiltrates slowly and the medium is infiltrated quickly, if you don't take steps to prevent it, you can create a pond effect and drown the tree. In a case like this, one option is to remove the medium and backfill with native soil as though it was a bare root tree. If the infiltration rate of the medium and native soil is similar, it is best not to remove the medium and keep the root ball disturbance to a minimum.

Thanks,

Jack
 
thanks Jack. It's in a very small container a big box store tree had come in, so not a lot of room. We'll see when I get it in the ground this weekend.
 
I planted this little tree today.....the tap root had been clipped at the nursery and remained unchanged. The roots coming off to the side I shook out and planted in the new soil. Did see where any had grown along the pot. Hope it does well.
 
Sounds like the tree was not grown in the container, but transplanted into it for sale.
 
I got it as a bareroot seedling last spring, then put it in the container....it was left over from a bunch that I planted. It was there all summer, only grew about 6 inches.
 
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