| PLANTING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP IN A NEW PLANTATION'S LIFE. PERIOD. |
| Planting must be done properly. It is the single most important step to creating a pine plantation. Do it right, and the trees will grow straight and tall. Do it wrong, and you can get crooked trees, spiral trees or even high mortality. The key to this is tight supervision of every step of the planting process. Hopefully this page has inspired some questions. Please call Tim and he will help answer them! |
Tree Planting
| Tree Planting--- |
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| Chesnut Forestry believes in "hands on" supervision of planting. Tim supervises the storage, pickup and transport of the seedlings, the handling of the seedlings at the planting site, and the procedure the planters follow while planting. Tim is with the planters, on site, the ENTIRE TIME. There is significant evidence that shows that even the best planting crew, when left unsupervised, can get a bit lazy. It is human nature, after all. Far from being a slave driver, Tim instead relies on friendship, example, and camaraderie to get a good planting job. Tim rewards his planters with a small feast at the end of the planting season, and tries to make their planting experience different and unique from the others they plant for. So, if you want a VERY GOOD planting job, call Chesnut Forestry at 706+936-0699!!! |
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| A common myth is that many believe we foresters plant only loblolly pines. That's not true. On one planting job in addition to loblolly pine, , Chesnut Forestry supervised the planting of longleaf pine, crabapple, red cedar, chickasaw plum, chinquapin oak, white oak, swamp chestnut oak and cherrybark oak. Additionally, Chesnut Forestry has planted nuttall oak, overcup oak, persimmon, walnut, yellow poplar, green ash, xourthern red oak, willow oak, water oak, hickory, swam white oak, willow and dwarf chinkapin...and chestnut! |
| Planning: |
| Nowadays, it is very important to get your seedlings ordered and reserved. This is especially true for longleaf and hardwoods, for they tend to "go fast". There are normally plenty of loblolly or shortleaf seedlings, but the QUALITY seedlings tend to get in short supply around August. Chesnut Forestry is very proud of the seedlings we use, and there are many we will not use. But if the landowner supplies his own seedlings, we will plant them, and plant them correctly, regardless of their origin We are very proud to say that we have never had a planting failure occur due to poor seedling quality. In fact, Tim is often called to "fix" failed plantations from other planters. Planning also includes having an eye to the future. The way a tract is planted can help or hinder future management such as thinning. |
| TREE QUALITY: First Pic, on the left, "standard" loblolly seedlings. on the right "bareroot" longleaf. This was a job where the trees were provided by the landowner, so there is no comparisions--but the loblolly roots are very stringy and fine and have no defined taproot. The seedlings Chesnut Forestry orders have very well defined taproot which are very hard to J or L root. Stringy roots very easily hook on the side of the planting hole and can become J-rooted, which won't necessarily kill the tree, but will stunt it and cause it to grow in a spiral pattern, never being anything more than a pulpwood tree. J and L rooted trees will have lower vigor too, which makes them more susceptible to any pathogen, be it fungus, blight or beetle. The bareroot longleaf look like carrots with large secondary roots shooting out. These are very hard to plant and Chesnut Forestry recommends planting ONLY CONTAINERIZED longleaf (right) There will be better comparision pics this planting season. |
| Tree Quality: |
| "Green side up" is funny, but that is sometimes the only instruction some planting crews are given. Proper planting is the MOST IMPORTANT stage of a plantation's life. If the trees are not planted properly, there is NO CHANCE of success. On the right, a one year old J-rooted tree (left), next to a more properly (albeit not perfect) planted tree on the right. This was a plantation that had to be replanted and Chesnut Forestry was supervising in South Carolina. The seedlings were of low quality, with flimsy taproots or none at all and the tract had been bedded...which makes planting much easier. So why so many j-roots? Bad trees and a lazy. poorlly supervised crew. Fact: none of the tracts that Chesnut Forestry supervised the year before for the same client, using the same crew and the same trees had to be replanted. With a combination of superior trees and an exceptional crew, Chesnut Forestry raises the bar for planting quality. Yes, the trees cost more, and the planting may cost an extra penny or two per tree...but if we plant trees that result in a half-inch of caliper or 10 feet in height over the life of the plantation, the return on that investment is well over 100%! |
| Planting: |
| Hand Planting loblolly. The foreman is right behind! |
| Hand Planting hardwoods--much slower, and more expensive. |
| Machine planting hardwoods--muddy, but works well! |
| Machine planting loblolly..in snow...COLD...but... |
| Hand Planting longleaf on scalped ground--foreman right there! |
| Proper Storage!!! Keeps 'em cool when its hot, warm when its freezing outside! |
| ..then you can take them directly to the site and plant them while they are still cold! |
| This is a "Z" Root...caused when a forester sticks his shovel in too close at to sharp an angle when he is checking the planting quality and actually strikes the seedling! |
| Proper Storage!!! Keeps 'em cool when its hot, warm when its freezing outside! |
| Hand Planting loblolly. The foreman is right behind! |
| This tree (NOT a Chesnut Forestry Client's land nor a Chesnut Forestry supervised planting) was "thrown" into the hole by a planter, causing a J-root. Those roots will grow bigger, in effect strangling themselves and creating a root mass that will impede water/nutrient flow and be unstable in winds (think a hip joint in the ground) |
| THE RESULT!!! This is after only SIX MONTHS of growth! Height has grown up to 10 Inches and root crown diameter up to nearly 3/4 inch!, and not a dead tree to be seen!!!! Want similar results? CALL TIM!!! |
| BTW...These pics were taken in JULY!!! Where are all the weeds? |
