I made a trip to the OK Forestry center yesterday, and picked up a truck load of oak, pecan, and Loblolly pine seedlings. We've lost a lot of trees over the last several years due to the drought, and I'm trying to slowly reforest our property.

I was impressed with the OK facilities, and can't understand why TX doesn't offer the selection and pricing that OK does. The guy that helped me told me AR was the big player in tree sales, and sells over 8 million trees a year.

Any help or potential gotcha's to watch out for while getting these trees started would be helpful, especially the easiest way to water trees spread out over 50 acres.

I use a 55 gallon drum tied into the back of my truck and about a 15 foot piece of hose with a shut-off valve on the end to siphon it out. Closing the valve and filling the hose with water allows for easy charging of the siphon. Two or three drums would keep you from having to make more frequent trips to your water source. Sure would be nice to make it a two man operation with one driving and the other sitting on the tailgate operating the hose. Bring along a gallon jug of water to recharge the siphon in case of loss of prime.

Find you a cheap used small trailer and one of those big tanks with the metal cage around it with a shut off and hose. This is what we were going to do this year if we had a drought.

If the tractor is big enough, you can find forks for the front or back and use the tractor to move the IBC tote around too. (That's the tank with the metal cage around it). Rinse the tote out well unless you know what was in it.

They are around 275 gallons each, so when full they weigh a bunch! If you go that route, get 2. One can be filling with water while you are emptying the other one. Al, as you know, drought stress can kill a tree a couple of years down the road, so I'd plan on watering them if they go a week without rain. If you really want to get fancy, buy one of those moisture meters they sell for house plants and use it.

When planting the trees, take care to pack the ground firmly under the tree roots, and again when you plant the tree. Observe the depth that the tree was growing, and plant it that deep. Leave a slight depression around the trunk so it will hold water.

Search the internet for an adapter to change the thread size from what it is on the tote to garden hose and you're good to go. There's 4-6 different IBC thread sizes, so you have to wait until you get the tote to see what it is.

Figure at least 5 gallons per tree 2x week. If you aren't planting out in a bare field, put those surveyor flags near each tree, or tie a piece of surveyor tape on each tree so they are easy to find to water 'em.

If you can get hold of wood chips from an outfit that is trimming trees, this will greatly improve the effectiveness of any watering that you do. We have been lucky to find guys trimming trees along local roads that are glad to be able to dump the wood chips on our place. It is best to age the chips one year if they have seeds from invasives in them (like poison ivy). I learned this the hard way!

Thanks guys, lots of good advice and it is appreciated. Biggest issue right now is the dibble bar just pivots in the soft soil. It just makes a X in the ground. We're due for over an 1" of rain tonight, so that'll get them a good start.

I got the mesh tubes to protect the trees, and 4' bamboo stakes. The stakes were extremely cheap, and I painted the tips with orange spray paint to make them easy to see.

That's why I want the 3 point auger......... The trees that we get are 2'-3' tall and I need some room to spread the roots out.

Yeah, we're done for the day. The rain we wanted just started.

Scott, I must have gotten a defective dibble bar. The more I used it, the better the holes got.

We got our trees in the d16 and d40 cone containers. I think an auger is the way to go with these.

We drilled holes in the bottom of 5 gal buckets and secured them to the tree bases on top of mulch piles. Then twice a week we came by with the tote and filled them up -- much faster as we could just slosh a bunch of water into the buckets and be on our way.

Al, ours come bare root, wrapped in papaer and spahgnum moss. Once they are unwrapped, we either have to put them in a bucket of water while planting, or heel them in if we can't finish in a couple of days. If kept cool and out of the light, they can stay wrapped up for a month.

Al, Jeff and I passed yo historic landmark at the road to your place about noontime but didn't stop because we knew you would put us to work..
We stocked our HSB picked up from Overton this morning.
G/

Scott I considered those, but went with the ones in the cones. I'll see what kind of results I get, then make a decision next year about what kind to go with. For a major project, the bare rooted one's are the way to go. Very cheap to buy.


George, I missed your call but I was sure you and Jeff would have stopped by for a quick tattoo.

Be sure to mulch around your trees! With pecan we see 50% more growth the first 5 years on trees that are mulched heavily. Not only does it help keep the ground moist it keeps weed competition down and feeds the tree as it breaks down. It doesn't matter what you use pine needles, leaves, wood chips, any of that will work.

Small update.

To all those that recommended mulch, thanks. We did mulch the trees, and it helped.

Every stinking oak and pecan tree died. I've never had such bad luck with trees, but at the cost, it was worth a shot. All the loblolly pines are doing well with all the rain we got this Spring.

Now that's it's time to actually start watering, I zip tied water bottles to the markers, cut out the bottom, and drilled a 1/32" hole in the cap. Now we can just drive by, and fill the bottle up. No water is wasted on the surrounding ground.