COPPICE AGROFORESTRY: TENDING TREES FOR PRODUCT, PROFIT, AND WOODLAND ECOLOGY
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coppice agroforestry:
Tending trees for product, Profit,
and woodland ecology

Hedgerow Install - the Installation and Beyond

4/28/2014

19 Comments

 
With over 2000 seedlings to install total, and a silty-clay soil that makes it very difficult to plant bare root trees in dug holes, I chose to use a planting technique known as 'notch planting' for this particular installation.  Most of the seedlings I'd ordered for this project measured between 6-12" in height, so they had yet to boast significant root systems.  Also, the fine, dense soil structure on my site makes the job of planting a tree rather challenging in that you usually need to try to break up chunky clumps of soil in order to have enough loose material to carefully pack around exposed young roots.  

Notch planting utilizes a simple 'planting bar' to make a 6" wide slit in the soil, ideally just large enough to invite the seedlings' bare roots.  This heavily-constructed tool amounts to little more than a blunt wedge attached to a T-shaped handle.  You step the wedge into the soil at the desired planting location and attempt to match the depth of the notch to the length of the roots.  Lightly wiggle the handle back and forth to open a wider notch.  (Take care not to lever it back and forth too far or you end up creating a large pocket of air at the bottom of the hole that can be difficult to close up cleanly around the roots). 

Grab the seedling you intend to plant and inspect the root system, pruning any broken, dead, or damaged roots and then carefully 'swipe' the plants' roots into the notch, setting the plant at the proper depth - either at the 'collar' or transition between the roots and aerial parts - or slightly deeper.  (Many hardwood species will tolerate deeper planting depths).  Then use the planting bar to create a notch an inch or two uphill from the seedling and use the tool to firm up soil against the planting notch, removing all air pockets.  Repeat this process another 2 or so inches uphill.  I then usually use the tool to carve away the soil around the edge of the final notch, creating a smooth basin for water to collect just above the seedling.  And then I carefully firm up the soil on either side of the seedling by stepping lightly around the perimeter of the young tree.  

In many cases I actually took one additional step to make for better root-to-soil contact in my clumpy soil.  I first used a mattock to finely shave up some soil just above each planting location.  I could then use this fine soil to fill in around plant roots before closing up the notch.  Finally, I attached a plastic label around the base of each tree with the species name written in Sharpie.  This not only should help me identify the trees later on should there be any confusion (assuming the Sharpie doesn't wash off or fade - which it likely will with time), but it also proved very valuable to help locate individual trees amidst the growing herbaceous vegetation before I had a chance to protect them with tree shelters.

Although notch planting is by no means the most tender approach to installing your seedlings, I found it to have a very high success rate, and it allowed me to install my plants considerably faster than I would have been able to had I dug holes for each.  Working alone, I averaged about 80 trees per day, but that also includes considerable time spent broad forking each planting site beforehand.  

In anticipation of this large installation, I sought out a tree planting machine - a tractor pulled implement that makes the job immeasurably faster.  I was unable to find one available for rent, and I chose to look no further because the short (30') East-West orientation of my rows would not have suited a tractor-pulled implement anyways.  But anyone considering a larger installation may well want to explore the potential to enlist in the use of one of these machines that make it possible to easily plant over a thousand seedlings in a single day with a crew of at least 3 people.

To protect plant roots from drying out and slow their budding out with the coming spring, I kept the seedlings' roots wrapped in wet newspaper, stored upright with their aerial parts exposed to the air to prevent them from staying overly wet and potentially developing mold.  Kept in a dry, dark place, it's possible to keep them dormant as such for several weeks.  It's absolutely vital to keep roots hydrated - letting them dry out is a virtual recipe for failure.

Prior to planting, I soaked each seedling in an inoculant slurry comprised of several species of endo- and ecto-mycorrhizal fungi.  I purchased this product from Fungi Perfecti, although there are several others on the market.  Knowing that I was asking quite a bit of my little seedlings to get established in an area that's been managed as a hayfield for the past several decades, I wanted to at least make sure they had the potential to develop mutualistic relations with symbiotic fungi.  I realize that it takes quite some time to shift the balance in soil biology from an early-successional, bacterially-dominated matrix to an old-field or forest ecosystem with it's more fungal-dominated populations, but this felt like the best I could do given the limited advanced planning I'd done the previous season.  This year I intend to surround each seedling with a 3"+ ring of wood chips to help add a woody component to the soil surface and make conditions far more hospitable for these crucial fungal populations.

When it came to the actual spacing and plant selection, I'd already laid out a fairly logical approach to follow, so it became a matter of fitting my desired pattern into the landscape.  My system varied as I continued to refine it, but generally I began by using landscape flags to lay out the location of the next 15 or so trees - I found that to be a nice 'batch size' to work with.  I left about 1.5 paces between each plant - roughly 5-6' and tried to make sure each row was staggered or offset from the one above it.  

Because I'd planned to create a 'stepped' planting from west to east, I usually selected a bundle of plants for each successive batch.  From west to east - a few lower shrubs for the western edge, 2-3 mid size trees, a couple of tall trees, at least one conifer somewhere within the central belt, and then finally any number of fruit or nut-producing species along the eastern edge, ideally with the lowest growing fruiting shrubs or small trees along the far eastern side of the row.  In this way I maintained a 'quiver' of possible plant species in a moist bundle under an EZ-Up tent I successively moved along as I progressed, retreating under the tent with each new batch to select and organize my next set of plants before stepping out into the field to plant them.  I found this approach worked very well.  Handling 45 different species in a mixed planting with varying row lengths and a dynamic structure does not lend itself well to a pre-packaged, assembly-line style approach.  So although it did take some time, I enjoyed the break I found with each successive batch to commune with the plants and think through my next set of decisions before needling to make them on the ground.

Once I'd completed sections of the planting, I returned to apply some broad spectrum mineral applications (primarily Azominte and green sand) along with a thin layer of compost.  And finally, because I wanted to make sure I got an edge on the competing vegetation, I broadcast a blended site-made mix of ten or so soil-building cover crop plants including, but not limited to, alsike, red, white, and sweet yellow clover; buckwheat; cowpea; tillage radish; field pea; fescue and a general pasture mix.  After inoculating the legumes, I mixed 5 gallon buckets of seed together.  Because I generally only needed to apply about 10 pounds per acre, I then made this mix far easier to spread by diluting it with a carrier - in this case I used sand.  To do so, I filled the bottom inch or two of a bucket with the seed mix and then covered it with sand, mixing thoroughly.  I kept adding batches of sand incrementally until the entire bucket was about 3/4 full with the sand/seed mix.  This dilution made it far easier for me to achieve recommended broadcast density and allowed me to spread my seed investment over a much larger area.

My final step was to make sure I protected my investment from the hungry droves of voles, mice, and rabbits.  I'd already learned the previous year that small mammals represent a significant foe to any reforestation effort in my area.  Girdling any and all young trees at their base (except for the gooseberries I'd planted), they'd inadvertently caused all of my previous installations to coppice (primarily Chinese Chestnut, serviceberry, hybrid willow, and hawthorn).  I didn't want to take the same chance this year. so I opted to make my own hardware cloth screens for each tree.

To do so, I purchased four 100' x 3' rolls of 1/4" hardware cloth.  I started by cutting the 3' roll in half into two 18" rolls first using a circular saw with an abrasive blade, finishing off the cut with a sawzall (The circular saw blade was not wide enough to cut through the entire diameter of the roll).  I then laid out the roll in 30 or so foot lengths, laying several layers on top of one another and used the circular saw with abrasive wheel to cut these long lengths into 10" wide strips.  This length yielded a tree shelter with a 3.2" diameter.  Four 100' rolls were enough to yield 960 shelters.  At about $105/roll, this meant I had spent just shy of 50 cents per shelter in materials (I later bought several hundred 2' tall plastic 'TreePro' shelters for 90 cents each for the sake of comparison).  

With this pile of flat sheets then began a very long process of conversion into round, bound tree shelters ready for installation.  We used a scrap piece of 2" ABS plastic pipe as a rough form, rolling each sheet into a rounded shape.  Then we used a needlenose pliers to fold over the ragged edge of the shelter around the metal links on the opposite side at both the top and the bottom, tying it together.  

Finally, we began by making our own 'ties' out of a light gage metal wire.  This proved very cumbersome, and after a few hundred, we modified our plan, buying bulk zip ties, making the process so much faster.  I had plenty of opportunity to keep track of our progress and found that it took us about 1 minute to wrap and bind each shelter.  I finished the process wondering if it weren't a better option to just buy the plastic shelters instead of making our own.  I'm still not sure I've made a clear decision, but this year I'm back to ordering hardware cloth (although I'm planning to make the shelters 2' high this time around) so I suppose that says something.  I definitely prefer the hardware cloth over plastic shelters for their superior ventilation, durability, and ease of installation.

It was very easy to install the hardware cloth shelters.  Because we'd cut the full roll of hardware cloth in half lengthwise, it meant that we always had one end that had a rough, jagged edge.  We oriented these edges downwards, centered the guard on the seedling, and then put balanced, firm weight on the guard, lightly wiggling it back and forth until it was anchored at least 1.5" deep in the soil.  This proved near impossible with the plastic shelters we'd purchased.  The firmness of the clay completely resisted the plastic guard's edge, so despite the pre-assembled conditions of the plastic shelter, we ended up spending considerable time carving away a ring of soil into which we could place the plastic shelter's bottom edge, only to later repack the circumference with soil to lock it in place.  Just one winter later, the freeze and thaw cycles seem to have loosened several of these plastic shelters, leaving the base of the trees vulnerable to rodent attack.

The metal shelters still feel very firmly embedded in the soil, but I added a stake behind each for good measure.  Because I had it, and I like making stakes, I rived out cedar and/or black locust stakes about 24" long by 1" square and used a hatchet to put a point on the bottom end.  When I ran out of this material, I conceded and bought 3/8" by 4' long bamboo stakes, which although fairly easy to install, probably will only last a couple of years.  

With the exception of some early-season watering during the first few weeks of the season (we went close to a month with zero rainfall between mid-April and mid-May), and 2 passes with the weed whacker spaced out during the season, that it was for treatment during 2013.  I would have loved to have made it out for a fertilizer application and also a heavy wood chip mulch application, but time, other projects, and financial resources all left these tasks for me to finish in future years.  It still feels a bit early to project but by the end of last season, I'd say I had an 85% survival rate which is just fine as far as I'm concerned.  I know I'll want to do some thinning as the hedgerow/'thicket' matures so this natural culling helps do some of my work for me.  As spring grows closer with each passing day, I hope I find similar results in the coming year.

This has been quite an educational experience for me.  Probably the best yield to date, and perhaps the most important one, has been and likely will be, information.  I hope that this detailed description has been of use to you.  I've chosen to include it here as something of a case study in multi-purpose coppice stand installation.  Your circumstances, goals, and resources will likely be quite a bit different than my own, but I hope you've been able to benefit from my own trial and error processes, learning from and integrating lessons I've learned along my path.  As we approach another exciting growing season, may all your efforts be blessed, productive, and vibrant!
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19 Comments
MikeH link
4/29/2014 03:58:58 pm

<i>This year I intend to surround each seedling with a 3"+ ring of wood chips to help add a woody component to the soil surface and make conditions far more hospitable for these crucial fungal populations.</i>

We do a 3 foot diameter circle in part for the reason that you mention but more for moisture retention and weed suppression. In our experience, it takes about three years for seedling transplants to settle in and be able to compete for resources.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
Mark Krawczyk
4/30/2014 01:43:43 pm

Great point Mike. We don't have such a need for moisture retention on these soils in this climate, although I still think it's a valuable function - but we definitely do benefit from woodchips' weed suppression. I plan to lay down newspaper underneath the chips as well to further aid in that function.
Wishing you the best
Mark

Reply
MikeH link
4/30/2014 06:53:19 pm

Hi Mark,

We thought that we didn't have to worry about moisture retention until the summer of 2012 with its 4-month drought. Up to that time, we'd done much smaller mulch circles and sometimes not at all, if it was a larger tree that we were planting. We didn't lose anything but we came very close. Watering was not an option because we have too many trees and not enough hours in the day. Before the grass aka mulch stopped growing, we started emptying the bags (we have a bagger on the riding mower) around the trees that we had planted that spring. Instantly, each larger tree got a 6-8" deep layer that was 3 feet in radius while the smaller trees got the same depth but 3 feet in diameter. We watered the clippings and then stepped on them to compact them.

We made an edible "pay-it-forward" hedgerow a couple of years ago - http://portageperennials.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/a-pay-it-forward-hedgerow/ that has worked out well. It survived having heavy cakes of ice from a December 2013 ice storm being dumped on it by municipal snowplows. That taught us how tough the trees are.

I'm looking forward to more posts on how your hedgerow is evolving and what it is teaching you.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
MikeH link
10/8/2014 04:30:14 am

Mark,

How did the the plantings fair against the weeds this summer. Were there any species that seemed to better than others?

Our plantings did very well in this, their third summer including a severe pruning by municipal cutting of grass on the road shoulders. For some reason, the operator extended the cutter an extra four feet down the hill for the section where the hedgerow is planted. These are hardy plants and they reacted to the pruning by putting out lots of new growth.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
Mark Krawczyk
10/21/2014 01:37:56 am

Hi Mike
Thanks for checking in. For the oat part it seemed as if the hedgerow planting fared well this season. We had a wonderful growing season with well-distributed rain throughout. I think we ended up scything around the plants 3 times this season and laying the tall grass/herbaceous vegetation around the trees in a deep mulch layer.

Certain areas definitely produced better than others - partly I think that is due to the considerable soil moisture in the poorer locations. I'd say we've got anywhere from 60-80% survival depending on where you are within the planting.

Certain species definitely have done better than others here. Some I'd expect (black locust and hybrid poplars are upwards of 4-6' tall and very robust), and others were a bit more of a surprise - sand cherry, bald cypress, apricot. Some of the other healthiest looking species include American plum (seedling onto which I plan to graft in future years), bur, red and white oaks (but especially the bur oak), basswood, elderberry, red and Russian mulberry, Washington hawthorn, aronia, and crabapple.

That's wonderful that your planting is doing so well! Congratulations. And it's great to see how the unintentional coppicing can be such a boon. Rodents did the same thing to me with a much smaller planting my first season on the land, but most of the species responded with vigor. Hopefully you'll be able to clear up the mow line with next year's operator.

Thanks for checking in and happy growing!
Mark

MikeH link
10/21/2014 04:30:22 am

Hi Mark,

One thing that we've been doing this year is inoculating everything that we plant with mycorrhizal fungi. If it's a bare root planting, we dust right onto the roots. If there's a soil ball that we don't want to disturb, we use a water-based product. We've also been working our way through our existing plantings giving them some of the water-based product in close to the trunk.

We also see similar growth in our black locusts and hybrid poplars. We've started coppicing our poplars to learn how they react. Very impressive regrowth the first year - 5' plus. You do have to thin and select what you want to keep. We take the branch tips and stick them in a pot to give us new trees.

The plums in our orchard are grafted onto American plum and are starting to throw off suckers 6-10 feet away from the tree. After having converted the orchard from a conventional approach to Michael Phillips' holistic approach, we no longer mow during the growing season. That may be why we're seeing the suckers - before they were being cut; now they aren't. We just dig them up and pot them up until they recover. They they get planted out or gifted. We've also trench layered the American plum. It does very well that way. Anything that has a tendency to sucker is a good candidate for stooling or trench layering.

Regards,
Mike

MikeH link
4/30/2014 06:50:01 pm

Hi Mark,

We thought that we didn't have to worry about moisture retention until the summer of 2012 with its 4-month drought. Up to that time, we'd done much smaller mulch circles and sometimes not at all, if it was a larger tree that we were planting. We didn't lose anything but we came very close. Watering was not an option because we have too many trees and not enough hours in the day. Before the grass aka mulch stopped growing, we started emptying the bags (we have a bagger on the riding mower) around the trees that we had planted that spring. Instantly, each larger tree got a 6-8" deep layer that was 3 feet in radius while the smaller trees got the same depth but 3 feet in diameter. We watered the clippings and then stepped on them to compact them.

We made an edible "pay-it-forward" hedgerow a couple of years ago - http://portageperennials.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/a-pay-it-forward-hedgerow/ that has worked out well. It survived having heavy cakes of ice from a December 2013 ice storm being dumped on it by municipal snowplows. That taught us how tough the trees are.

I'm looking forward to more posts on how your hedgerow is evolving and what it is teaching you.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
MikeH link
4/30/2014 06:52:14 pm

Hi Mark,

We thought that we didn't have to worry about moisture retention until the summer of 2012 with its 4-month drought. Up to that time, we'd done much smaller mulch circles and sometimes not at all, if it was a larger tree that we were planting. We didn't lose anything but we came very close. Watering was not an option because we have too many trees and not enough hours in the day. Before the grass aka mulch stopped growing, we started emptying the bags (we have a bagger on the riding mower) around the trees that we had planted that spring. Instantly, each larger tree got a 6-8" deep layer that was 3 feet in radius while the smaller trees got the same depth but 3 feet in diameter. We watered the clippings and then stepped on them to compact them.

We made an edible "pay-it-forward" hedgerow a couple of years ago - portageperennials.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/a-pay-it-forward-hedgerow/ that has worked out well. It survived having heavy cakes of ice from a December 2013 ice storm being dumped on it by municipal snowplows. That taught us how tough the trees are.

I'm looking forward to more posts on how your hedgerow is evolving and what it is teaching you.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
Erik Lee link
5/1/2014 10:29:19 pm

I'm going to be experimenting with a system called a "Missouri gravel bed" this year to reduce the stress of planting season (on me and the trees!). It's basically a way to grow out the roots of a tree in a way that will let you transplant it with a high success rate even in full leaf later in the season. The basic concept is to fill a bed with gravel and a little sand, then put the plants into it and run drip irrigation over them periodically (3 minutes per hour at a flow of 1 GPH is the recommendation). They develop a very fibrous root system, and you can extract them from the bed without damaging the root hairs, which leads to a condition where you can transplant in full leaf in July in MIssouri (read: HOT) with very good results!

Here's a link to the only decent resource I can find on these things. If I have good results with it, I'll post up a much more detailed explanation and build plans on my site:

http://www.plantsci.missouri.edu/PS2210/mgb/mgb_lev2.htm

Reply
MikeH link
5/2/2014 12:47:43 am

Brilliant idea. I'll be interested in your results.

Regards,
Mike

Reply
rental mobil link
6/14/2014 05:55:55 am

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Reply
Nancy
8/11/2014 05:34:24 am

I visited your site as a result of a Scott Mann podcast. The podcast was very informative as well as the contents of this entry. I like learning some things that look like anneasier entry into permaculture processes. The book sounds like one for the wanted list.

Reply
Donal MacCoon link
10/8/2014 04:00:35 am

Thank you for sharing your approach here in creating a multi-purpose hedgerow. I'm looking forward to your forthcoming book on coppicing with Dave Jacke.

I'd love to see this project grow over time if you have the energy and interest in continuing the updates.

Thanks for your work!

Donal

Reply
Mark Krawczyk
10/9/2014 11:47:47 am

My pleasure Donal. We'll keep the updates coming!! The race before winter has us both a bit preoccupied, but expect to hear more once the snow starts to fly!

Best
Mark

Reply
Donal MacCoon link
10/10/2014 12:23:16 am

Thanks Mark. Good luck with the race!

Mick
4/17/2015 01:20:13 am

Can I throw you guys off course a bit :) ?

When you're referring to 'forest ecosystems', are you sure what the term 'forest' should actually be referring to?

There's a book called 'Grazing Ecology And Forest History' which, if you don't include it in the resources for a book on coppicing, will come back to haunt you. Seriously.

All the best!

Reply
Peter George link
4/1/2016 05:58:32 am

That book 'Grazing Ecology And Forest History' is fantastic Mick! And a crucial read for those who seek to understand landscape. Thank you so much for alerting us to it (a free PDF, too!) Blessings.

Reply
Kim link
6/17/2016 12:48:15 am

Great post. I love this share

Reply
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12/14/2022 02:34:48 am

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