Jan Flora wrote:
In article , "Don Staples"
wrote:


"Jan Flora" wrote in message
...

In article , mike hagen
wrote:


They've grown these trees locally. We're paying 69 cents/tree for

2100 trees. Sounds high to me, but what do I know?


Are they containerized seedlings? May be about right if they are.


They're bareroot 1 year old. They're healthy (I was a botany major), except
for some mold from the paper that seperates every 100 seedlings in the box.
It sure doesn't look like damping-off fungus to me, but my SO is a cynic and
thinks it's bad juju.

So we've planted, geeze, lots. Did 600 today, in a nice drizzle that
turned off to
a steady rain. Perfect planting weather. We have 900 trees left to plant,
but all
of our neices & nephews are riding in the local rodeo tomorrow, so we'll plant
early, go to the rodeo, them come home and plant some more. The SO & I can plant
about 150/hour, not working hard. (We're both approaching our middle years, so
our backs can only take so much in a day.)

The tool that Chris made out of an old leaf spring, part of an old
handyman handle
and part of a shovel handle is just a dandy planting bar. The cutting edge
looks like
an ulu, with a tang that runs up into the handle. It works. (The neighbor
who used a
dibble last year had all of his trees heave out of the ground with the
frost this
spring. But his place is a swamp anyway.)

We're having trouble hiring a forester down here, to evaluate all of this
replanting
stuff that landowners are doing. The US Forest Circus doesn't seem too
concerned.
I'm going to phone the professors up at the university and ask for a
master's student
in silviculture who needs a project or a summer internship, to come down
and ride
herd on us, and tell us how to do it right/better. (Oh, don't know if I
mentioned: the
SO sits on the local SWCD board. That's who needs a forester, to ride herd
on all of
us cowboy/cooperator/landowners.)

Jan

Sounds like you're doing great. Planting trees is one of the harder
things to do physically with the best long term personal satisfaction -
but that's just my view.

So where are you that you have a rodeo?