Bare Root Trees- Can't get them to grow!

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Buffalo

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Joined
Oct 25, 2022
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293
Location
Central Nebraska/Northwest Kansas
Howdy Gang,

Last fall I ordered a dozen fruit trees from the Arbor Day Foundation. They arrived a little later than I would have liked due to some unseasonably cold weather and snow in our neck of the woods. If I remember correctly, they arrived the third week in May. We weren't able to get them into the ground until Memorial Day weekend, a week later. During that time, we made sure that the wrappings stayed damp and kept them in the office at the shop, where it is 70ish degrees all year long.

We had plotted and tilled the spots in our wannabe orchard plot at the homestead. We worked in a bag of compost into each tree's spot. Planted them with the top of the root ball just above level, back filled around and then mulched with wood chips. We then placed a drip ring around each tree. Now, I'm not sure if it was just due to the super hot and dry summer we had or if we had done something incorrect when planting these trees, but they never came out of dormancy and just died. The twigs on them snapped when you went to check the bend on them.

I'm wondering now if I should have potted those trees the first year and kept them at our shop. There I could have monitored them almost daily and possibly headed off any problems before they became major. What is your experience with planting bare root trees? Is it similar to what we experienced? 20220529_192312.jpg20220529_192315.jpg
 
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I don't know exactly but I will mention.

If you cant plant them right away dig a shallow trench to bury the roots and keep the roots watered.

Storing them at 70 degrees may not be good because they could try to come out of dormancy.

When planting stomp down the dirt around the roots tight. No air pockets. Important for pear trees.

Make sure there is no dirt or organic material touching the bark above the dirt level.

Keep them watered and prevent them from drying out.

Sea story
Last december I transplanted 2 english walnuts from my backyard nursery to my wood lot we call The Ridge. No option to water them since the stream is at the bottom of ridge. I have to rely on God to water. We had a dry spring then a hot summer. The smaller of the 2 trees set on foliage ok. The larger not a single leaf. About 2 weeks ago I scratched the bark with my thumbnail above ground and there was still green under the bark. So it is not dead yet.

I am just an amature and learning by making mistakes so don't rely on me knowing what I am talking about.

You may want to try scratching your trees just above ground level to see if there is green under the bark. Not a big scratch. Just enough to see the green.

Ben
 
I might be able to help with the ones in the ground.
build up about a foot of rich soil around the base and cover it in some base mulch fairly thickly and put a couple of fruit tree spikes around the bases.
 
I too like ordering trees and finding out how many I can kill. The 70 ° was too warm and you may have over dampened them. I had the same thing happen. Neb's advice is good.

This year (spring) I drilled holes with a big posthole auger down three feet into straight clay. I half filled the holes with horse, chicken shavings mix compost and instead of spreading the roots, made them go straight down. I dumped around three gallons of water in and topped off with dry dirt.

I cut the sidewalls out of some old car tires and placed them on the surface around the trees and filled with shavings. I watered a couple times and then got distracted and didn't do it all summer inspite of drought. Those trees are still alive and did very well, just in time for winter to kill them. I have shavings and straw around them now and shovel snow on them whenever I can.

I think it's the temperature swings that are going to end them this time.

This fall I received some surprise mail order trees and I planted two same as above, only in the snow. Three are potted in dog food bags in my back storage room @4 C.

Next spring will yield more info.

I have a tried and true brown thumb so don't count on what I do.
 
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I never fertilize the first year. the 2nd spring I hit them with a ring of 10 10 10.
The pear trees are very healthy but grow slowly. The apple trees will almost double in 1 year. The peach trees will grow 5 ft on height and limbs. The cherry trees will will grow slower but about 50% increase.
I put a small cottage cheese container full around the small trees and a taller yogurt container full around the trees that have been planted 2 years on. At the drip line.
I will transition to organic when the trees are established.
 
Peach trees were always a pain to try to get going, out of six we planted when I was a kid, one made it, and it never did well at producing. of course, northern TN. isn't exactly peach country either. the tent worms and Japanese beetles got the rest.
 
I've had very mixed results from Arbor Day. The roots never look very healthy. I bought my trees from www.starkbros.com
Their bare roots trees have huge root masses. I try and plant by Dec. But have done some no later than April. We are zone 7B. I dug holes a little bigger than the roots will spread and deeper than they had been grown. We have a lot of clay here, so I start off with 4 to 6" of clay breaker. Just a good loose mix. Then fill most of the hole with rich compost. Using my hands I press the mix in as tight as possible to fill in the air pockets Finish up with the best dirt that came out of the hole. Used a gallon of water after the compost to settle everything, then another gallon at the end. Water deeply every week or two that you get no rain once spring or warm weather hits. Only a little fertilize the second year. Third year fertilize as normal. I do add a handful of triple super phosphate, 0-45-0, when planting. Helps give the root growth a boost. I use it on my asparagus bed as well
 
That seems very late in the year to set out fruit trees. Do you have a county extension office close by? They will have detailed growing and pruning info for your area including insects you’ll have to contend with. I’m in zone 7b/8a. When I had peaches they bloomed in March. I finished winter pruning by Feb 1st at the latest.

Speaking of pruning… just an observation on what I’ve seen here… For years I've seen folks retire and buy a place out here in the country. They invariably set out some fruit trees and as a group they seem to make the same mistake. They don’t prune and shape their trees.

They end up with fruit they can’t reach from a step ladder. The birds get all of it the insects leave. They can’t fight insects or varmints 20ft off the ground or harvest the fruit. After about 5yrs I usually notice they’ve cut down their trees. If they had pruned every year they’d have plenty of usable fruit.

I pruned my 200 peach trees and usually sold 7 tons of fruit each year. I kept them less that 10ft tall. Dealing with insects, disease or varmints was simple, no ladder required.

Peach Trees a  (2).jpg
Peach Trees a  (7).jpg
 
That seems very late in the year to set out fruit trees. Do you have a county extension office close by? They will have detailed growing and pruning info for your area including insects you’ll have to contend with. I’m in zone 7b/8a. When I had peaches they bloomed in March. I finished winter pruning by Feb 1st at the latest.
That maybe a big part of the failure this year. We ordered those trees back in March, but they weren't shipped to us until mid May. We are in zone 5b, so our last frost date is May 10th I believe, and I wanted to have them in the ground before then, but the cards just didn't fall where we needed them to this year.
 
I bet you'd do good with cherries
Not so you would notice. I have three cupid sour cherries waiting to plant out in the spring. I planted 8 of them across Canada on the farm and they lived but I moved before they amounted to much.

I planted 2 Russian pear trees in the snow that are supposed to handle down to -40°. Cold really is less of a problem than the freeze/thaw cycles that are becoming more normal.
 
I'm wanting to get some fruit trees in the ground, I thought I'd have to start in the Spring, looks like I might be running behind. I'm in 6a/6b, would planting them in the Fall be better?
From what I understand messing with trees to plant prune etc is best done when they are dormant.

I do it in December when I can still dig the ground and cold of January and Feb keep 5hem dormant. We typically have wet springs that keep the trees watered as 5hey come out of dormancy.

When I did plant fruit trees in fall I kept them watered then wrapped them in burlap for 5he first winter.
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Ben
 
Repeating I am a novice.

Today I dug up 4 Chestnut trees to transplant in a month. I was pretty brutal so some better than others.

20221117_141510_HDR.jpg


Then I dug a trench and 5hrew some straw in the bottom to help with moisture and some insulation.

20221117_143539_HDR.jpg


Just laid the trees in the trench then covered with dirt.

20221117_143746_HDR.jpg


Then a layer of straw on top for insulation.

20221117_144716_HDR.jpg


Watered them good and now the hope phase kicks in and hope they will wake up next spring.

Ben
 
Last year I bought several cherry, plum and apple trees to replace some that varmints girdled the bark and killed. A couple of these were bare root cherry trees. Every tree grew except the bare root ones. We have snow on the ground in our orchard until first of May. By that time most nurseries have sold out of their better trees. This year we'll buy our fruit trees, grape and blackberry plants in March and keep them in the barn until we can plant.
Currently our orchard has 24 trees that are doing good, with room for 12 more.
 
Last year I bought several cherry, plum and apple trees to replace some that varmints girdled the bark and killed. A couple of these were bare root cherry trees. Every tree grew except the bare root ones. We have snow on the ground in our orchard until first of May. By that time most nurseries have sold out of their better trees. This year we'll buy our fruit trees, grape and blackberry plants in March and keep them in the barn until we can plant.
Currently our orchard has 24 trees that are doing good, with room for 12 more.
I think that is what I am going to do this next spring. I am sure it is going to cost us more than the bare root trees did, but if they survive, then we are money ahead instead of gambling money on these bare root trees. My original plan was to plant a dozen fruit trees each year to get our orchard established over roughly 6 years.
 
About 25 years ago, I decided to create a sort of permaculture grove of food producing trees.

I went to a tree growing business about 40 minutes drive from us and talked to the owner about the project.

He came to our place and looked over the piece of land I wanted to plant. Between the two of us we put together a plan of what trees we were going to plant, in what exact locations and with what spacing. That was turned into an order for about 60 bare root trees to match the plan. The trees include several varieties of Oak, Chestnut, Pecan, Macadamia, Walnut, Almond, Mulberry, Orange, Persimmon, Mango, etc.

They grew the trees, told me when would be the best planting time and brought them to the site with a crew of hippies who were very experienced at planting and establishing trees. The whole project got planted in a few hours.

I put in a 3000 gallon header tank that I could fill from a dam a few hundred yards away. I then built a retic watering system from 1.5", 1" and 1/2" black poly lines that I used to get the trees through the first few summers. The system required me to run a gas fire fighting pump to fill the header tank (taking about one hour per fill) - but just gravity to feed from the tank to the trees.

95% of the trees survived and they are now a big grove of food producing trees (and some nearby shelter trees in the corners of fence lines).

Sometimes it is best to use professionals.

At the time, it cost about $1500 - but now those trees probably add twenty times that much to the value of that land.
 
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