That is a lot of planting! You plant each one by hand or you have commercial equipment?

Do you have trouble growing peach trees in Rhinelander?

As for me going up next week to make furrows. Hope to get some help from 3 other guys, we are getting older.Root dip and tree spade. Planted thousands of trees. Lost around half to deer drought gophers vowels. Tree tubes fencing and ground fabric helps alot and rain. Really like the crab apples we put in 25 rears ago. Spruce do well on their own, except for cover not good for food. Seems like unusual trees get rubbed by deer. Tamarac, Fir and cedar are magnets for frustrated young bucks.

I'm getting some more swamp oak and swamp chestnut,

I have5 acre of full sun that is not farmed ,,,,,I want to raise nursery trees on this piece of ground.
It will be a sideline business,..
Should I start in pots or plant?

Trees will be stuff that live in Montana…..Billings area…..

If you are starting the trees by seeds or cuttings, I recommend starting them in air prune beds. Air prune bed are basically a solid sided box, usually wood, with a wire mesh bottom, raised a few inches off the ground. When the tap root hits the open air, it stops growing, thus being air pruned. When the tap root stops, more lateral roots are formed, which also grow down and stop and the process repeats. When the tree is eventually planted in it's final spot, the tap root will start growing down again. The tree will do better because of all the lateral roots too.

Trees in pots, unless they are frequently placed in bigger pots, develop circular roots that are less effective, which can actually strangle the tree.

Trees in the ground are hard to remove safely because of the deep tap root. They also don't develop as many roots as they would in an air prune bed.

Most of the bare root trees I bought will hopefully be sold before they get pot bound. Those, that don't sell, will be repotted once they go.dormant in the Fall.

Keith

A peach tree cultivar called "Contender" was recommended to me by a couple of farmers up in Ashland Co. They stated it was very cold hardy and produced a bountiful crop. It is rated for zone 4a which we live in and our acreage is not as susceptible to frost, which we rarely have a problem with for our fruiting trees and bushes. We purchased Contender Peach trees from Stark Bros. This cultivar is also self pollinating so we went with 3 of them. Will find out how they do in a couple of years.

Chris

I have 1 Contender peach tree. It's my only peach tree that has fruit every year. It still doesn't always have a large crop though.

Keith