Seedling Planting Tool

[lmbrman]

well the frost just came out around here and thought i would check back and see how your planting job looks-

got a few to plant myself and thinking of my family just like you, wife father and kid will be helping me

brown down

 

[forestryworks]

Supposed to plant this week! Good timing too, lots of rain here in the last two months, enough to get us out of the drought on the drought monitor!

From the planting brochure...
We use the Valentine, Nebraska seed source for Ponderosa Pine due to its resistance to Dothistroma needle blight and tolerance to pine tip moth.

 

[madhatte]

Looks oddly familiar...

 

[slowp]

about one day's work for this planting tool :msp_smile:

I can't see it going through our slash. I experienced planting in light slash. I don't think it would do it, much less a logged unit in Hemlock and D-fir.

 

[lmbrman]

I can't see it going through our slash. I experienced planting in light slash. I don't think it would do it, much less a logged unit in Hemlock and D-fir.

- or your hills

we used it to plant in christmas tree fields harvested the year prior, but that is nothing compared to logging slash. It has a 200# breaker just behind the coulter to break debris, but the coulter itself is vulnerable. It was a nice machine when my wife and I could ride together and hire a tractor driver and two people for sorting trees. Could actually sit upright on it and lean back like a recliner as there was a spacing chain that held the trees and released them in the trench, perfect spacing. We got to be a pretty good team. Paid for her school tuition and then some. Planting used to be a good job around here, with several locals guys planting half million a year with a few crews, but mostly open fields. I think it has mostly dried up.

Now she has a real job and the cost of hiring help scares me off. We sold that planter and have a small 'forester' tree planter that is slow and you hafta bend over, but it is simple and cost effective for the two of us to run on the weekends during planting season without hiring help. Kid will be old enough to ride the planter in a couple years, but can already sort trees and keep us supplied

edit/added: nursery is digging seedlings, but we will not be planting ourselves until april

 

[q-tip jr]

planting...

in the late 1970's (God I'm a getting older) used to set Red pine (scotch) and white pine 2 year olds with something called a grub hoe, .06 cents a tree, after a thousand a day it was a time for refreshments! very sandy/ gravely soils in Maine and made it a little easier. This clay hear might not permit such a tool, I have heard of imported crews knocking out 20 or more acres a day with dibbles I would guess..

 

[lmbrman]

in the late 1970's (God I'm a getting older) used to set Red pine (scotch) and white pine 2 year olds with something called a grub hoe, .06 cents a tree, after a thousand a day it was a time for refreshments! very sandy/ gravely soils in Maine and made it a little easier. This clay hear might not permit such a tool, I have heard of imported crews knocking out 20 or more acres a day with dibbles I would guess..

I have been lucky enough to mostly avoid hand planting, althought I do have a couple of those dibble bars around. Used them on our own land each year, but mostly underplanting whitepine, just a few hundred a year is all.

We have 7000 to plant in april equal mix of red/white pine, open ground, mowed last fall, 1/4 mile rows. Should be an easy one. Well, I might have jinxed that now-

 

[lmbrman]

planting season is always hectic and this year was no exception. Weather did not co-operate, but we got the bulk done in early april. No pictures from that round- too hectic. Last weekend on saturday lmbrkid and i dug some balsam fir seedlings from our patch. I did little to cultivate these plants, but they are prolific seeders, and we have thousands in our yard from seed. The weather was perfect- like 45' in the am, cloudy, light rain the night before as well as heavy rain for three days after planting. Lmbrkid is not quite big enough to plant yet- arms are too short so lmbrwoman had to help plant.

here is the planter, the area past the tractor to the pines has already been planted to white and red pine, some black spruce

ready to plant, the rows continue close to the treeline

 

[lmbrman]

couple more pics- the view from the planter:

and the results :

 

[lmbrman]

later than we cared to plant balsam, but the price was right, and i want to encourage my daughter's interest in this

best picture (the box is from the previously planted pine and spruce) :

 

[Samlock]

I did a two days planting job this week. It was the first of the season and may be the last too, so I took the liberty to make a clip of the tool we use here for planting smaller softwood seedling.

[video=youtube;biq-A2CI_Ns]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biq-A2CI_Ns&feature=youtu.be[/video]

 

[slowp]

A blonde joke.

There were two blondes coming down the side of the road. One would dig like crazy with a shovel, then the other one would come along and fill in the hole. They were going fast, and working hard.

A bystander asked them what they were doing.

They answered that they were planting trees, but one of their crew, whose job it was to put the tree in the hole was sick that day......

Well, guess I'll go out and face the firewood.

 

[hammerlogging]

your video made me very happy.
Grinding chains tonight, as many as I can.

 

[Humptulips]

That is one sweet looking rig to plant trees.

 

[Samlock]

your video made me very happy.
Grinding chains tonight, as many as I can.

Joe, guess what I'm up to tonight?

Started another job. Urban logging. They're going to make a residential area for 50-60 houses out of an industrial wasteland. My job is to make the tree stands look decent, or, alternatively, tolerable. Willows, Alders, Birches, mostly chipper quality. Cut, cut, #### (steel bar)... cut, cut, ##### (barb wire)... cut #### (lump of concrete).

Ok, I'm from Guatemala. Or from any Stan of your choice. I don't care. Just let me back to do planting, please.

 

[OlympicYJ]

planting season is always hectic and this year was no exception. Weather did not co-operate, but we got the bulk done in early april. No pictures from that round- too hectic. Last weekend on saturday lmbrkid and i dug some balsam fir seedlings from our patch. I did little to cultivate these plants, but they are prolific seeders, and we have thousands in our yard from seed. The weather was perfect- like 45' in the am, cloudy, light rain the night before as well as heavy rain for three days after planting. Lmbrkid is not quite big enough to plant yet- arms are too short so lmbrwoman had to help plant.

here is the planter, the area past the tractor to the pines has already been planted to white and red pine, some black spruce

ready to plant, the rows continue close to the treeline

How do you figure the spacing with that? does it have a wheel counter or something?

 

[lmbrman]

How do you figure the spacing with that? does it have a wheel counter or something?

drone of the diesel helps -

some guys mount a counter, we never needed one after the first million trees

 

[OlympicYJ]

I did a two days planting job this week. It was the first of the season and may be the last too, so I took the liberty to make a clip of the tool we use here for planting smaller softwood seedling.

[video=youtube;biq-A2CI_Ns]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biq-A2CI_Ns&feature=youtu.be[/video]

How do you like usin that tube? Ive never seen that before for plugs. Everyone here just uses shovels. Any problems with air pockets and such?

drone of the diesel helps -

some guys mount a counter, we never needed one after the first million trees

Haha yea after a while you can get into a rhythm lol

 

[Samlock]

How do you like usin that tube? Ive never seen that before for plugs. Everyone here just uses shovels. Any problems with air pockets and such?

First I must say, it's really good for your back. And shoulders too. The only body part that gets sour with the tube planting is the soils of your feet. The jaws cut a round hole a bit more spacey than the plug, so you need to pack it good on the both sides of the root. That's quite easy since you're already standing straight. However there's always citizens who will skip the packing because it takes time. That's when the problems with air pockets and such will emerge.

Careful packing, I think, makes that the tube doesn't speed things up. Just makes it a lot lighter, on a fairly flat ground. On that particular plot shown on the clip, (flat, mostly soft soil, not much rocks or clay, slash cleaned, max. 250 meters distance from the landing) I planted 2400 pieces within 8 hours.

 

[slowp]

It does look much easier than slamming a hoedad in the ground. The nurseries would have to cooperate in making plugs instead of bare root trees.