when to plant conifer plugs?

[j-bird]

I am thinking of getting myself an early x-mas gift and getting my spruce plugs (mix of white, black and norway) for my various screening and thermal cover projects. However I am not sure if I should plant them in the fall or the spring.

Anyone have any preference one way or the other?

I hear somebody has a special tool for planting plugs as well - I may be interested in one.

Anyone have any comments as far as Itasca is concerned?

Anyone have any suggestions as far as plug sizes are concerned?

 

[bwoods11]

Spring might be best, but fall will work. I like to plant some plugs in the fall, usually around September in MN...as long as it rains you should be good (almost always rains some time in the fall).

 

[SD51555]

I've always planted spring. I've never tried fall, mostly because it's too dry in our area, and frankly I'd had my fill of 90 degree/90 humidity summer projects by then. I've used Itasca two years now and have had great luck with everything I've bought. Only hiccup we've had is most of their white and norway spruce died over the winter and they didn't tell me until I got there. But everything I have gotten has been huge and performed well. Dogwoods were 3' tall, black spruce were 24" tall, all my norways at whites were at least 15" tall. Beats the hell outta those little potted ones that are 4" tall.

 

[PackerBacker]

J-bird - do you have a good source for plugs for the fall? I usual plant bareroot from our state nursery and they don't do fall plantings and the couple companies I've had time to call for plugs only ship in spring. I would love to get the screen along the road started yet this year. I can add the hybrid willows and poplar I plan on ordering from John in the spring then.

 

[SD51555]

I forgot to mention all the spruces I bought were 4a plugs. 198 per flat. I wouldn't buy any larger because those are tall enough, and when you get into larger plugs, you start to notice around plug 400 that you're wedging larger holes open. The whites and norways didn't do much their first year, and then they got blasted pretty hard with winter burn. We planted black spruce this spring and they've taken off like a rocket right away.

Here's what they looked like when we planted them. None were wider than 3-4 inches.


This was about two months later. If you look closely, you can distinguish the new from the old by the lighter color. Not the same tree, but they were all the exact same size.

 

[wiscwhip]

Get them in fairly early and set good in the ground and you should be fine. The only real issue with fall planting plugs is if you don't have good fall growing conditions and then have a bunch of freeze/thaw cycles the root plug can be frost heaved out of the hole if the roots haven't grabbed any new dirt to hold them in place. Not a common occurrence in my experience, but it can happen if conditions are right(wrong).

 

[Jim Timber]

My Itasca black spruce have done really well this year too. I was supposed to have some whites, but they were low on inventory and forgot about my order under Art's paperwork so they had his ready, but mine wasn't when I arrived. They ended up giving me a cancelled order of size 6 blacks for the same price as the 4A's and I didn't need to wait for them to pry up the frozen to the ground flats.

I've found a couple that didn't look so hot, but I know I had some that had damaged roots when I planted them. You'll get that with trees anywhere you buy, and Itasca gave me probably 45 trees over the number I paid for. I didn't count as they went in the ground, but they were bundled in 15's and I counted plastic at the end of the day. On the last day, I had too many wrappers. Bill and crew were great to deal with despite the mix up. I can only imagine the stress they were under this spring with such a big loss on their crop.

As I've mentioned in other threads, I was told that you want about 30 days of growing season before a hard frost so the roots get a chance to set (like WW just said). Late August is probably ok, late October and you're really rolling the dice depending how far North you are. If there was a good moisture system moving in, and you could get them planted ahead of it now, I'd be planting trees if you have the desire. It's one more season they're in their final soil. Closest thing to planting a tree yesterday is today.

 

[biglakeba$$]

Wow. That is impressive SD!

 

[tooln]

I prefer spring planting over fall. Better chance of survival if a rough winter IMO.

 

[Jim Timber]

I prefer spring planting over fall. Better chance of survival if a rough winter IMO.

I'm not convinced of that based on a lot of reading on dormancy patterns of spruce. If you plant now, you can hope for 8 months head start on root development, and you've got a better chance of getting more mature, albeit still very juvenile, trees. The sooner you get the plug in the final location, the sooner it'll begin developing deeper/wider roots in parent soil. Better roots will mean more growth when dormancy is broken in the following spring. Dormancy which may break before you're able to plant the new arrivals.

The only real argument for over-wintering in the nursery is potentially warmer temperatures, but only having the 4-6ci of dirt means that soil won't retain much thermal energy and you might be better off if it were in infinite soil like in the field. As I mentioned above, Itasca had their Styrofoam freeze to the ground below it to the point they needed to warm the trays to get it un-stuck. Is that an indication of warmer roots? Not in my view!

https://www.forestry.umn.edu/sites/forestry.umn.edu/files/MinnesotaForestryNotes_155.pdf

 

[SD51555]

I am thinking of getting myself an early x-mas gift and getting my spruce plugs (mix of white, black and norway) for my various screening and thermal cover projects. However I am not sure if I should plant them in the fall or the spring.

Anyone have any preference one way or the other?

I hear somebody has a special tool for planting plugs as well - I may be interested in one.

Anyone have any comments as far as Itasca is concerned?

Anyone have any suggestions as far as plug sizes are concerned?

What's the scope of your project J-Bird?

 

[wiscwhip]

What's the scope of your project J-Bird?

o_ONo worries, this is what I deal with everyday!:eek:

 

[j-bird]

I have a few small screening projects and I have a 3 acre sanctuary area that I want to plant the spruce in for thermal cover. All are full sun applications - only real concern is weed and grass competition. I have very few conifer of any sort on my place so adding the thermal cover will be a big help. I want something the deer won't eat and I am not impressed with pines and I am avoiding cedars to avoid CAR issues. It will be a one man show so I figured plugs would be a good way to help speed up the process without killing myself with digging actual holes. I figure I will try to get a few hundred to start with and see how they work out. The area of the thermal cover I think I want to plant the leading edges first and then plant in small clusters - I will hopefully add more and more over the years as my budget is fairly limited.

I was leaning toward the 4a size simply due to cost.

Is the "plug tool" worth it or can I simply use an old broom stick to make the opening?

I was planning on contacting Itasca and seeing what hey had available.

 

[j-bird]

View attachment 6549
o_ONo worries, this is what I deal with everyday!:eek:

I get the same thing at work as well - except I help provide the budget number based on the design the customer comes to us with for a project and the customer makes 6 changes, increases the scope of the project and still want's it to cost less and be on time!

 

[dipper]

I'd spring plant them in the previously fall planted rye. I've never had weeds choke out baby spruce, but have lost many to quack/ cool season grass.
If anything I'd fall treat the locations with a fall treatment of ghlyphosate and oust. I do prefer the rye, but oust is my second preference.

 

[dipper]

Id be concerned with winter burn, with your lack of snow insulation.

 

[wiscwhip]

I get the same thing at work as well - except I help provide the budget number based on the design the customer comes to us with for a project and the customer makes 6 changes, increases the scope of the project and still want's it to cost less and be on time!

View attachment 6552

LOL! I feel your pain j-bird and it burns! I sent out an estimate proposal on the 24th of July and the project owner still hasn't awarded the work, they originally wanted all the steel on site by August 14th! o_O Drag their feet on award, drag their feet in RFI's for the modeling process, drag their feet on approval of shop drawings, add scope during approval process, and by the way we want this in the same timeframe you promised in the initial proposal and for the same amount of contract.....................RRRRRIIIIGGGGGHHHHTTTTT, let me drop my next project and jump on that for ya!!!:rolleyes:

 

[Jim Timber]

Lack of snow cover is a relative issue. Some years we have over a foot on the ground by January. I'd rather worry about roots on a <3yr old tree than the needles it will shed from harsh weather.

Look at it this way, the first time it's exposed to summer it has very limited roots if you plant it in the spring. Or you could have a 6 month head start and better drought tolerance. I'm more worried about water uptake than winter burn - Itasca had winter burn on their trees at the nursery.

 

[j-bird]

LOL! I feel your pain j-bird and it burns! I sent out an estimate proposal on the 24th of July and the project owner still hasn't awarded the work, they originally wanted all the steel on site by August 14th! o_O Drag their feet on award, drag their feet in RFI's for the modeling process, drag their feet on approval of shop drawings, add scope during approval process, and by the way we want this in the same timeframe you promised in the initial proposal and for the same amount of contract.....................RRRRRIIIIGGGGGHHHHTTTTT, let me drop my next project and jump on that for ya!!!:rolleyes:

Hey Wisc, want to see the erection out my window here at work?!?o_O


They are building a 400,000 sq ft manufacturing facility here. Not sure of the crew doing it but these fella's bust ass! This was a field only back in late June.

 

[j-bird]

As for the trees, I am much more concerned about the summer heat and weeds. I don't have winter weather like you guys do up Nort' but I think the thermal cover it will eventually provide will be a welcome addition to my property.