Tree Planting Systems?

UGUIDE

UGUIDE

Active member
Anybody hear of a fabric-less, no-till tree planting system? If not, I am inventing one.

All no till, herbicide based and no soil disturbance and no weed badgering either.

Got about a half mile of trees going in this way this spring. Same species as was put in a couple years ago with fabric so will be good comparison.

If it works it should reduce costs by 75%. Some says trees cost $2,000/acre to plant with fabric.
 
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Chris, if you remember the trees over by the dam, they were scalped into native sod about 30 years ago. If you are not familiar with that. Trees are planted in a furrow that is opened and the tree planted right behind the furrow maker. Those were planted on the contour of the slope of the hill to catch runoff and hold it for the trees. I think it worked well.
 
Are you planting them into sod? Saving $ won't make sense of the trees can't compete with the sod is where I'm coming from. You usually have to kill the sod back in order for them to get a foothold.
 
Troy, yes, I can go into any cover type without tillage. Answer to your question might be given by haymaker on his planting into native sod. Wondering how the new trees competed against sod growth.

My system is more like strip till only not even as much disturbance as that. it is also a herbicide system to set back the sod growth in the zone.

I just put down a treflan/glyphosate in the rows about 24" wide with GPS guidance. With GPS you can get very precise with all.

As long as you can set back the competition you can release the new trees.
 
Sounds like you've gone through my thought process already! Good idea. Back in the day when I did both public and private land, I was planting 26,000 trees a year. Used Treflan on tilled plantings. A year or two after I was taken out of the private land system they came up with weed barrier. I guess with your system, the biggest concern I can think of is getting good root/soil contact, getting the air gaps filled in. Also, you may find you have to plant later in order to get a good kill on the sod. Did most of my plantings in March and April here. The NWSG isn't always awake by then. You'll probably be better off mowing the site the fall before so dead standing matter doesn't eat up most of your gly.
 
Your knowledge was what I was looking for. Yes, if I could I would always spray Gly the fall before. I am clipping as low as I can and then I just acquired a new 4 wheel hay rake that rakes the row. Just got done spraying the treflan/gly yesterday and once a rain comes it will be set for planting. Could possibly rake once more pre plant if the conservation district wishes. The rows are pretty darn clean.

Immediate post plant is packing with tractor or UTV using wheels driving along side of planted row. Then use a water tank to drip on the row and seal the soil to the roots. This allows a post plant application of Prowl H2O.

Then will drill between the rows with 10' no till drill with whatever NRCS approves like side oats or blue grama. I personally like alfalfa and tall wheat grass.

From there it is clip once a year in the spring and spray prowl h2o, right after clipping and before bud break, on the row until the row out competes whatever is adjacent to it. This usually takes 3-5 years depending on species of tree selected.

The one issue i have with fabric is is makes the row really rough and tears up a lot of ground in the process. is cost and labor intensive and does not decompose in 5 years like they said it would. It's there for life I think.
 
The downside of the alfalfa between the rows is that it will attract both deer and rabbits that may well clip your trees off and negate your progress. I'd try to put that attraction off for a couple of seasons to allow establishment.
 
we've had quite a bit of alfalfa in all our tree belts with no major issues. The main issues we have had to deal with are:

- crab apple trees - deer pressure too heavy to grow
- broadcasting seed instead of drilling - seed gets too thick and also gets in the fabric holes next to trees and causes competition
- serviceberry - operator sprayed the outside row but these seem to be less hearty in general.
- Weed badgering - This practice disturbs the soil way too much

I have had great luck with alfalfa and tall wheatgrass in the rows. They like to seed sideoats but the cover is a little too light and not very diverse. Thunder is also a good herbicide you can use on that combo.

When I visited the farm late Jan after attending state PF meeting I observed the most pheasants, on each farm, were hanging out in the tree belts with american plum in rows 3,4 (well one had them in rows 1,5 which is a huge mistake because you are constantly clipping the suckers on the outside rows whereas if you put them between some cedars they tend to not get outside there own rows.

So where I see the most birds in tree is cedars in rows 1,2,5 and either russian olive, american plum, or freedom honeysuckle in rows 3,4. They seem to enjoy the avian protection they get in those thickets.

PS. Man I learned a long time ago the lesson about killing sod. Spray it in the fall. It works like butter in the spring. Although I am not working ground anymore but at least you can rake the duff out of the row. The rake is like a trash sweep on a no till planter.
 
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Could you use an application of POST or Select after you plant the trees to kill the sod? This would allow planting the trees earlier in the spring when RU is not very effective. Still have broad leaf issues to deal with if they were present. Some species of trees and shrubs are suppose to be tolerant of Plateau that would take care of a lot of broad leaf issues.
 
moellermd said:
Could you use an application of POST or Select after you plant the trees to kill the sod? This would allow planting the trees earlier in the spring when RU is not very effective. Still have broad leaf issues to deal with if they were present. Some species of trees and shrubs are suppose to be tolerant of Plateau that would take care of a lot of broad leaf issues.
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Interesting. I see where you are coming from. Kinda like no tilling into stubble and spraying the rest off before emergence (in this case bud break). All depends on how well the tree planter is able to knife thru the existing sod. Still think a best practice would be to spray in fall and rake the row clean prior to tree planting.

Right now I would not apply anything after leaves appear.

This system is heavily dependent on herbicide technology as the game changing tool. I've spent a lot of time reading herbicide labels over the years and that is the key. Most are not willing to get educated but my local coop that sprays Ag fields has been a great partner and I get my chemicals from them. So far I only use herbs that have good info on the label about fruit and nut trees. My tree plating coop also has a lot of experience and we trade secrets back and forth like cedars and junipers tolerate a quart of glyphosate per acre. This gives one a clear advantage for fabricless tree rows when it comes to conifers.

If you want to insure success you have to get away from the more susceptible species and lean towards ones that are all considered invasive like cedar, plum, russian olive and now freedom honeysuckle which was just outlawed in MN. From what I have seen in the short run the plum is my most invasive species.

I know for fed/state lands mgrs like Troy their lifes can be made tough dealing with these species but one guy stated that he is ok with them as long as they stay in the row but once outside the row they are fair game. I can live with that and manage accordingly as well.

Chinese elm is one that is a problem for me and I assume this was planted in some of the older treebelts in the area well before my time.
 
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2000 trees are going in the ground. no fabric. Did the last coat of Gly and another pass on the rake. Looks good. GPS and autosteer really help too. Gearing my whole farm system to that to reduce fatigue, gain efficiencies, etc.
 
Watering

UGUIDE, do you water your new tree/bush plantings or set up drip lines or just let nature take over? SDviking
 
sdviking said:
UGUIDE, do you water your new tree/bush plantings or set up drip lines or just let nature take over? SDviking
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Viking, good question. If you have the equipment it never hurts like on initial planting to seal them up. BUT, I like systems that depend on natural weather so no I don't.

I planted some trees in a bad spring drought and they did fine. Planting pervasive persistent species helps a lot too.
 
A little water help along the way

We have planted about 400 bushes/short trees over the past two years. We try to prep the rows in the Fall and plant in early May. Last year we were able to pick up 4 truck loads of wood chips from the local tree cut down guy, so we put the chips around most of the new plants. We have a 80 gallon water fertilizer tank off of a John Deere 7000 planter that we have mounted in the back of an old Gator. The gator can handle about 60 gallons at a time, so we fill it up and drive along the tree rows reach back and grab the hose from the bottom of the tank to gravity water the trees. So far it has worked well and our survival rate for last year was good. Putting in trees and bushes is a lot of work and has an expense to it, so we are trying to give the stuff the best chance of survival possible. Hoping the pay off of great winter cover happens in the next 5 years. Wish we had more land and time to help habitat and hunting conditions out in our area. SDviking
 
Chris, I think it depends mostly on your site and the soil/rain. I have been doing it here for about 13-14 years. I just planted 175 again. Norway Spruce, Techny, Northern White Cedar, and Butternut this time. Not sure in the open or equipment for that. I have done all with a shovel or a 2 man post hole auger. This year my NS, and Cedar were plugs, so a 6" auger was the bomb. I will do that again next year with White Cedar, and White spruce. I always say I am done lol, but then there I go again. I have had, I would say about 95% of my trees grow and do fine. Fabric sites in the area grow faster to start. But I have had 0 issues with them taking off. I do get them water if needed the first year. After that they did fine. I must be a few thousand trees in to it now:eek:. The plugs are great to plant. I like them better then bare root. All of my trees have been planted in brome sod. I do have black heavy soil that holds moisture well. And I always have nice black fluffy dirt here that I plant back in my holes with the new trees. Then Just add water.
 
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Ken, interesting methods which sound like they produce. It certainly does matter to look at objective, land resource, size of project, budget and scalability.

I need a system that is highly scalable and lowers cost while raising the production of wildlife. Repeatable, duplicatable and sustainable are some other characteristics that are important.

My last 2000 tree project this spring is looking good with most everything leaved out and on the grow.

The project I started with last year certainly had more mortality like all the dogwoods did not tolerate the chemical I put down. Had to replace 3 rows with different species. the soil base was not as clean and solid as I like either which brings about establishment issues. Its a darn good test bed though and some day it will transform the shelterbelt around the home place buildings.

Have you seen any increased bird production with your habitat efforts?
 
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