Planting Goals

Care of Seedling

Keep seedlings wet. If hand planting a few at a time, carry them in a pail of water. If machine planting a lot of trees, use wet burlap or moss to protect roots and expose as few trees at a time as possible.

Root Placement

Seedlings should be planted with roots fully extended downward. Avoid the J-rooted planting. It may be better to trim long roots than to have them distorted at the bottom of a shallow hole. Keep them natural, that is if you are in a situation where you are considering cutting a 12-inch root system back to 10 inches for ease of planting, you should consider the consequences. By root.

Root Regeneration

The sooner a seedling's root system establishes contact with soil moisture and nutrients, the greater the probability of survival and growth pruning, you are limiting the plants capacity to function. If this is a dryland planting site, you may have to haul five gallons of water to each plant later in the season to compensate for 2 inches of depth (not a tested figure). Considering the work involved in watering, maybe making the hold deep enough in the first place doesn't sound so bad.

Planting Depth

The deeper roots reach into the ground, the longer they have moisture available as the soil moisture is depleted during the year. Bareroot stock should be planted with root collar at or just slightly below ground line. Containerized stock should be planted about 1/2 inch below ground line so that dirt covers the soil mix on the root ball. If this root ball is exposed, it could act as a wick which dries the plant out.

Soil Compaction

When hand planting, the root system should be placed on the straight edge of the hole, and the dirt should be packed in with your foot. The idea here is to get all the air pockets out and have all the roots in contact with soil. To test your planting job, grasp the tree with thumb and one finger and pull up firmly - the tree should not move. When machine planting, it may also be necessary to follow the planter and compact each tree. This depends on how well the planter is doing and on soil conditions at the time. Compaction can sometimes also be a problem. In heavy clay soil when using a dibble or auger just big enough for a container, we could be creating a compacted cavity that roots have a hard time penetrating--like a pot-bound house plant. I'm assuming that in any of our plantings, this problem has been handled by site preparation that loosened the soil.

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Last Modified: 07/05/2007