Thread: Replanting question
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Old 30-06-2003, 06:20 PM
Larry Caldwell
 
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Default Replanting question
(Jan Flora) writes:

Anyway, all of the neighbors who have bought his trees say they've had a
60-90% death rate on trees. What's the normal loss on white spruce? On
lodgepole pine? On larch?

Any/all advice is welcome. We have a neighbor who ran planting crews in
Oregon. He's going to line his kids out as our planters, but we want to do this
right. We can't afford to buy 2100 trees that are all going to die. Our cows
winter and calve in that woodlot. They need a "woodlot" for winter protection.
(We're building "cow condos" out of some of the sawlogs we salvaged from the
logging for the girls, until we can get trees growing in there again.)

Your cows will kill most of the trees unless you protect them. 10% to
40% survival in a cow pasture sounds about right. You can put a mesh
sock over them to protect them until they get established, but you have
to pull the sock up every year to avoid deforming the seedling. The tree
will eventually grow through it, but cows will turn it into a shrub until
it manages to grow past the browse line. That may take a decade or more
if the cows are hungry. Not that you probably care. You are replanting
to provide a payday for somebody 50 years from now, when you are dead and
gone. In that perspective, an extra decade doesn't mean squat.

Your forester buddy may be scamming you. A good price for 2-0 seedlings
is $0.20. Your 2100 trees should only cost you $420, or at least that is
what I would pay here in Oregon. Prices for trees in Alaska may be
like the price of a can of beans. You can also buy from anybody you want
to buy from, so get quotes from any nursery you can find, and include
guaranteed delivery dates in the quote. Local seedlings from your micro-
climate, altitude, etc. are the best. Plant as early in the spring as it
thaws enough to dig. If the sap is rising in the trees, the seedlings
are already breaking dormancy. Refrigeration will hold them for a while,
but the seedlings are dying every day they are out of the ground.

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