I’m renting one from a local guy to plant 1,800 tree seedlings next weekend in a previous Ag field, so the terrain and rows are smooth and well defined, the planter will be pulled with a tractor. I have no concept on how many hours this may take. Is this a 1 -day or 2-day job? Any Do’s and Don’ts are also appreciated.

The planters we use here in the orchards, two guys on the planter and one driving we can do 300-500 trees an hour with the ground leveled and ready. These are 4-5' apple trees.

Thanks- I'm just trying to round-up some additional resources to help and wanted to give everybody an idea about the time commitment.

I,800 planted by dibble on unprepared ground covered with slash would be a half a day job for good three man crew down here.

That's an option, I have (2) Dibble Bars, (2) forestry seedling bags and (2) 58 year old guys that think they're 17

I said good and didn't include myself in that crew. LOL

When I did reforestation work in logged over mountainous ground in Oregon we planted between 400-1000 trees a day with a hoedad. To this day some of the toughest work I ever did.

Better off getting the planter specially if you have bare root seedlings plugs not so much after a couple hundred nobody will think they're 17

What are you going to do after lunch? They go in the ground fast with a planter and ag fields. Sat in a planter quite a few days growing up.

MarshRat- I'll swing by and pick you up on the way north- you can relive those days of irrational exuberance. To answer your question: I'd be happy to take a nap after lunch and maybe have a couple fingers of Buffalo Trace after that and call it a day. I'm planning on two days just in case it turns into farming and we have to fix or rebuild something

With that many trees, you'll be glad to rented the planter and didn't plant by hand. You should be able to plant them all in one day if all goes well. I would highly recommend laying weed barrier fabric as well. It will help with weed control and also hold in some moisture in the rows.

Plan on 3 to 4 weeks minimum, since it is rented equipment something will break, the part will be out of stock, and it will take forever to get it, isn't that how it goes? It will take a while for you to get in the grove of things but it is easily a 1 day job in the conditions you describe.

Shouldn’t take more than half a day. You will most likely have to do some adjusting on the set up to get it planting deep enough and packing correctly. If your top link is adjusted too short you will be plenty deep enough but your packing wheels will ride too high, if it’s too long your coulter won’t cut deep enough but you will be packing good. You will need to walk behind the planter with a dibble bar to plant skips and straighten up leaning trees. Once the tractor driver and the planter get their speed figured out and get in a rhythm it should go pretty smooth. The guy in the planter will have a sore back the next day.

Very good feedback OKforester on adjustments. Get that right and it is off to the races.

Eagleye, How far up north? I still have frost in the canary grass covered parts of the ground here. I wanted to plant some willow and dogwood today, but frost wouldn't allow.

I think my days on a planter are over. I hate the rows as they are not wildlife friendly. So I spend way too long spading them in.

Beaverpeeler and I used to do reforestation work together. I remember at least a few occasions when we put in 2500 trees between us planting with a hoedad

I'll be up in the Ladysmith area- we also had some frost last week, the latest I was able to push the trees out to was next week. Picking them up in Hayward the week of the 25th, I'm also hand planting some red osier dogwood after that.

I watched a You Tube video so I'm an expert know lol. I agree the cadence of the planter & driver seem to be critical, let go too early and it plants deep, hang on too long and the trees on a 45 degree angle. I plan on laying out a grid with lath and flagging tape to identify the perimeter of rows and then fluorescent marking paint to get tree rows directionally correct and create a grid.

Just a follow-up- I got a loaner planter from the DNR and it took us about 10 hrs. to plant the trees- day 2 was way more productive after we tweaked the planter. At first you can see from pic 3 that the closing wheels were not rolling the furrow back over on one side, not a lot of adjustments on the planter but if the plow tip was tilted deeper the furrow rolled over better as it started to self- close before the wheels came in contact. The white spruce were brutal to plant, only 1yr old so you had to bend pretty far to get them seated well (it would’ve been just as fast to dibble those). The White & Red pines were 3 yr old seedlings and that went fast, including all the American Plums with a nice root base in pic 1. We took out time, planted one row and went back and planted misses and heeled everything in, caged all the Bur Oaks- finished sore and tired after about 2,000 trees including some additional Red Osier Dogwood and it started to rain so timing was good. Can’t say enough good things about the Wisconsin DNR Nursery staff – great people and awesome customer service.

Sounds like me each morning

Wow ! Good job Eagleye , someone will be real proud of you in about 40 years . I’ve always been told you are planting trees for the next guy .