How to care container root tree when you receive them
- Leave them outdoor in the shade or full sun as you wish (Do NOT put them indoors!)
- Make sure that all the trees are upright
- Keep them in the wrapped bundles of five or ten.
- Remove the trees from the shipping container and place the bundles at a density of about four bundles of trees per five gallon pail (or use a plastic tote)
- Maintain NOT MORE than 1/4 inch of water at the bottom of the containers you are keeping the trees in.
- You can plant the trees dormant or when budding or when in full leaf successfully.
Planting and Mulching Instructions
HELP PLANTING/MULCHING/GRASSING INSTRUCTIONS
For landowners who are planting and then plastic mulching, the order of operations is as follows:
A) Plan your tree area
Most landowners or acreage owners plan a complete yard surround of a minimum of three rows of trees with 4 m (13 ft) between rows. If you are planting three rows, pre-work an area 12 meters wide to give space for the 3 rows and a 2 metre corridor on each side.
Rule of thumb on planning tree needs: If you are surrounding a ten acre lot then each tree line is about 1000 meters long.
If eight acres surround each tree line will be about 800 meters long.
If three acres surround each tree line will be about 300 meters long.
B) Pre-work the land
To cultivate grassed areas you have two options:
Go over it 15 times with a double disc to turn grass and sod to fine tilled garden texture
OR
Go over it three times with a heavy duty spike cultivator followed by rotor-tiller. Rototiller alone can NOT break grassland. If you try to use a rototiller only you will have a fluffy top of soil but very hard pan soil below the first three or four inches.
If the soil is properly prepared you should sink up to your ankles when walking on it.
Do NOT only use a cultivator as the ridges make the soil too rough. You want a smooth fluffy surface.
IF YOUR LAND HAS ALFALFA
Alfalfa and trees do NOT mix. Alfalfa is deep rooted and will rob the soil moisture of trees like no other weed! You must eliminate any alfalfa ten meters back from the tree line and the tree planting zone.
C) Pre-water the tree lines if it is too dry.
If your pre-working of the land has made the soil dry then take a five hundred gallon water tank that can be pulled by your 3/4 tonne or small tractor, open up the valve full bore and drive 1 km per hour over the intended tree planting rows one day prior to planting to moisten the site.
D) Plant the trees with a tree planter at one tree every two seconds, or plant manually. Do NOT add soil additives of fertilizer.
For dry regions or where trees will not be irrigated, HELP plants all its trees six to eight inches deep and deeper for poplars. Ninety five percent of trees that die during establishment die because of either lack of moisture or too much air around the root. When you plant deeper you help ensure the roots are sealed without air and you ensure they are nearer to the subsurface moisture.
E) Plastic Mulch Trees
If you want to use the method HELP has developed, use a mulch machine set with the back discs three inches deep and the front discs 1/2 inch deep only. This will make 4 to 5 inch high soil ridges on each side of the plastic. This ensures:
1) that the plastic is very well covered so it will not blow off the field.
2) that rainfall that falls on the plastic remains on the plastic and does not run off. To ensure rainfall finds a tree hole: during or after a rain walk your tree lines with a 3 foot long stick with a nail taped to the end. whenever you find a low portion of the plastic that is holding water on top, prick the plastic with a nail so that whenever it rains that water will work its way below the plastic.
3) ensures that when you mow grass your mower will never catch the plastic because the soil ridge protects the plastic.
4) in winter the soil ridge will catch snow over the seedlings which will ensure greater spring moisture and will help protect the seedlings from being eaten by deer or rabbits.
Cutting the plastic: At HELP we actually lie on the machine to get very close to the ground. We place our finger on the plastic when each seedling disappears under the bar. By the time our finger is 12 inches behind the roller that tells us the tree is right under the roller and we bring our hand forward and prick the plastic with a sharpened screw driver. We use a screw driver instead of a knife because is the cut is in the wrong place the tree pullers behind cut a new hole where the base of the tree actually is and we abandon the wrong place small hole. Never make the holes larger than one inch! Then the pullers stick one or two fingers in the hold to pull out the tree seedling. Do NOT stretch the hole to where the tree is. Instead cut a new hole at the base of where the seedling actually is.
Using a spade manually cover the ends of the plastic rolls four inches deep in soil so a 100 kph wind cannot dislodge the plastic and make it a flag blowing across the field!
If for any reason there are any gaping holes greater than a couple inches, put a finger pinch of creeping red fescue grass seed at the base of the tree in the plastic tree hole. Far better to have a small tuft of grass growing around your seedling than a five foot high coshia or rag weed!
F) Grass Broadcasting
After tree plastic mulching we typically plant a 'living mulch' in the form of common creeping red fescue (CRF). CRF is a shallow rooted turf lawn grass that is drought resistant. Because it is shallow rooted it does not compete with the deeper rooted trees.
First calculate the area to be grassed For example, take three rows of trees, 500 m long and 4 m apart, plus two meters outside of the outer rows. This gives 12 meters width x 500 meters = 6,000 square meters divided by 4500 meters per acre = 1.3 acres
We recommend using 50 lb/acre of CRF grass seed. In the above example 1.3 acres would require 65 lb of CRF seed. You can order it from any grain company for about $109 per 50 lb bag inclusive of taxes.
To plant the grass seed, mount a broadcaster on our quad (you can buy quad mounted grass broadcaster from Princess Auto for $150). First, broadcast 25 lb per acre (most tree plantings would not be more than a part of an acre to a couple of acres for larger plantings). Then, hook up 4 ft harrows behind your quad and broadcast at another 25 lb per acre, open very little as you are now doing 4 ft passes instead of 12 foot passes. The two broadcastings allow for incorporation at slightly different depths and ensures total coverage considering wind etc. Then, harrow one last time. We do not recommend using discers or drills for grass seeding. It needs to be very very shallow so broadcasting works perfectly.
Following broadcasting and harrowing, you can drive on the area if you like. You can even use a roller if you like, as grass establishes even better when it is well packed. This is not necessary, but it is beneficial.
G) Grass Mowing
CRF is the finest textured lawn grass and very soft to walk on. Mow the weeds in early June and once in July till the grass becomes a turf cover that will stop the annual weeds from coming.
H) Winter Snow Cover
Though most people do nothing special, it is believed that snow cover over the seedlings will ensure greater tree survival and growth rate. To promote snow cover, leave the last growth of grass (or weeds on year one) without mowing them after July so that they are tall enough to stop snow over the tree line. Snow cover is even more important if you are doing a fall tree planting. In this case you can even use a snow blower and blow no more than six to eight inches of snow over top of the tree line. Snow cover stops soil dehydration, ensures roots cannot freeze (which they can at minus 50 or so), ensures spring moisture, and keeps pests away from eating the critical bottom few inches of the seedling.
BELOW PLEASE FIND THE OFFICIAL PFRA PLANTING AND MULCHING INSTRUCTIONS WHICH ADDS MUCH IMPORTANT INFORMATION.
Note that PFRA provides different opinion about land preparation time, planting depth and mulch machine settings.
Customers should decide for themselves which policies they wish to follow.
For landowners who are planting and then plastic mulching, the order of operations is as follows:
A) Plan your tree area
Most landowners or acreage owners plan a complete yard surround of a minimum of three rows of trees with 4 m (13 ft) between rows. If you are planting three rows, pre-work an area 12 meters wide to give space for the 3 rows and a 2 metre corridor on each side.
Rule of thumb on planning tree needs: If you are surrounding a ten acre lot then each tree line is about 1000 meters long.
If eight acres surround each tree line will be about 800 meters long.
If three acres surround each tree line will be about 300 meters long.
B) Pre-work the land
To cultivate grassed areas you have two options:
Go over it 15 times with a double disc to turn grass and sod to fine tilled garden texture
OR
Go over it three times with a heavy duty spike cultivator followed by rotor-tiller. Rototiller alone can NOT break grassland. If you try to use a rototiller only you will have a fluffy top of soil but very hard pan soil below the first three or four inches.
If the soil is properly prepared you should sink up to your ankles when walking on it.
Do NOT only use a cultivator as the ridges make the soil too rough. You want a smooth fluffy surface.
IF YOUR LAND HAS ALFALFA
Alfalfa and trees do NOT mix. Alfalfa is deep rooted and will rob the soil moisture of trees like no other weed! You must eliminate any alfalfa ten meters back from the tree line and the tree planting zone.
C) Pre-water the tree lines if it is too dry.
If your pre-working of the land has made the soil dry then take a five hundred gallon water tank that can be pulled by your 3/4 tonne or small tractor, open up the valve full bore and drive 1 km per hour over the intended tree planting rows one day prior to planting to moisten the site.
D) Plant the trees with a tree planter at one tree every two seconds, or plant manually. Do NOT add soil additives of fertilizer.
For dry regions or where trees will not be irrigated, HELP plants all its trees six to eight inches deep and deeper for poplars. Ninety five percent of trees that die during establishment die because of either lack of moisture or too much air around the root. When you plant deeper you help ensure the roots are sealed without air and you ensure they are nearer to the subsurface moisture.
E) Plastic Mulch Trees
If you want to use the method HELP has developed, use a mulch machine set with the back discs three inches deep and the front discs 1/2 inch deep only. This will make 4 to 5 inch high soil ridges on each side of the plastic. This ensures:
1) that the plastic is very well covered so it will not blow off the field.
2) that rainfall that falls on the plastic remains on the plastic and does not run off. To ensure rainfall finds a tree hole: during or after a rain walk your tree lines with a 3 foot long stick with a nail taped to the end. whenever you find a low portion of the plastic that is holding water on top, prick the plastic with a nail so that whenever it rains that water will work its way below the plastic.
3) ensures that when you mow grass your mower will never catch the plastic because the soil ridge protects the plastic.
4) in winter the soil ridge will catch snow over the seedlings which will ensure greater spring moisture and will help protect the seedlings from being eaten by deer or rabbits.
Cutting the plastic: At HELP we actually lie on the machine to get very close to the ground. We place our finger on the plastic when each seedling disappears under the bar. By the time our finger is 12 inches behind the roller that tells us the tree is right under the roller and we bring our hand forward and prick the plastic with a sharpened screw driver. We use a screw driver instead of a knife because is the cut is in the wrong place the tree pullers behind cut a new hole where the base of the tree actually is and we abandon the wrong place small hole. Never make the holes larger than one inch! Then the pullers stick one or two fingers in the hold to pull out the tree seedling. Do NOT stretch the hole to where the tree is. Instead cut a new hole at the base of where the seedling actually is.
Using a spade manually cover the ends of the plastic rolls four inches deep in soil so a 100 kph wind cannot dislodge the plastic and make it a flag blowing across the field!
If for any reason there are any gaping holes greater than a couple inches, put a finger pinch of creeping red fescue grass seed at the base of the tree in the plastic tree hole. Far better to have a small tuft of grass growing around your seedling than a five foot high coshia or rag weed!
F) Grass Broadcasting
After tree plastic mulching we typically plant a 'living mulch' in the form of common creeping red fescue (CRF). CRF is a shallow rooted turf lawn grass that is drought resistant. Because it is shallow rooted it does not compete with the deeper rooted trees.
First calculate the area to be grassed For example, take three rows of trees, 500 m long and 4 m apart, plus two meters outside of the outer rows. This gives 12 meters width x 500 meters = 6,000 square meters divided by 4500 meters per acre = 1.3 acres
We recommend using 50 lb/acre of CRF grass seed. In the above example 1.3 acres would require 65 lb of CRF seed. You can order it from any grain company for about $109 per 50 lb bag inclusive of taxes.
To plant the grass seed, mount a broadcaster on our quad (you can buy quad mounted grass broadcaster from Princess Auto for $150). First, broadcast 25 lb per acre (most tree plantings would not be more than a part of an acre to a couple of acres for larger plantings). Then, hook up 4 ft harrows behind your quad and broadcast at another 25 lb per acre, open very little as you are now doing 4 ft passes instead of 12 foot passes. The two broadcastings allow for incorporation at slightly different depths and ensures total coverage considering wind etc. Then, harrow one last time. We do not recommend using discers or drills for grass seeding. It needs to be very very shallow so broadcasting works perfectly.
Following broadcasting and harrowing, you can drive on the area if you like. You can even use a roller if you like, as grass establishes even better when it is well packed. This is not necessary, but it is beneficial.
G) Grass Mowing
CRF is the finest textured lawn grass and very soft to walk on. Mow the weeds in early June and once in July till the grass becomes a turf cover that will stop the annual weeds from coming.
H) Winter Snow Cover
Though most people do nothing special, it is believed that snow cover over the seedlings will ensure greater tree survival and growth rate. To promote snow cover, leave the last growth of grass (or weeds on year one) without mowing them after July so that they are tall enough to stop snow over the tree line. Snow cover is even more important if you are doing a fall tree planting. In this case you can even use a snow blower and blow no more than six to eight inches of snow over top of the tree line. Snow cover stops soil dehydration, ensures roots cannot freeze (which they can at minus 50 or so), ensures spring moisture, and keeps pests away from eating the critical bottom few inches of the seedling.
BELOW PLEASE FIND THE OFFICIAL PFRA PLANTING AND MULCHING INSTRUCTIONS WHICH ADDS MUCH IMPORTANT INFORMATION.
Note that PFRA provides different opinion about land preparation time, planting depth and mulch machine settings.
Customers should decide for themselves which policies they wish to follow.
| how-to-install-plastic-mulch.pdf |
| planting_and_care_of_shelterbelts.pdf |