Production tips

I prepared a talk entitled ‘Ten Top Practical Tips’ a few years ago, with a multi-page handout that contained many tips contributed by local producers. Some tips are just common sense. Many tips are commonly practiced. I made the list from seeing their success or seeing the need. Pat yourself on the back if you’re ahead of me. I hope you’re doing most of these.

Know the pH of your soil or media. Soil test. Do not guess. Too much lime can be as bad as too little. Do not sidedress all nutrients. Broadcast part of the P and K. Test a percentage of blocks to be planted each summer/fall.

Transplant with the correct size transplanter. Borrow or buy the size needed rather than remove too many fibrous, valuable roots from a liner with a $10 root system to fit a smaller transplanter. Roots are the heart of a liner. Roots will grow a plant. A top with too few roots will stunt until the roots grow.

Never plant too deep! Demonstrate to labor. Explain why. Supervise. Leave and return quicker than they expect in order to check on them. Replace the disk blade that throws soil to the row with a smaller diameter blade. Do not bury the roots even more.

Do not plant and immediately cut the plant back. Foliage is required to grow roots. Wait one year.

Irrigate to save young liners, during a dry summer, to grow the crop faster, to activate the preemergent herbicide, to facilitate digging during a dry fall, etc. Irrigation requires money, time, mgt and a water source. Irrigation is the re-distribution of previous precipitation.

Calibrate all sprayers and fertilizer distributors or ask me. It is possible to reduce fertilizer amount by 2/3 of the standard nursery practice and maintain growth.

Gain caliper by leaving lower foliage and branches on tree liners first few years. Do not ignore the research. Low leaves and branches may be unsightly, but they serve a purpose that means more money and better quality. Remove branches before they become half the diameter of the stem to reduce the wound size. It might be a good idea to spray thiophanate methyl (Cleary’s 3336) immediately after major pruning to protect the wounds from canker causing diseases.

Chisel plow rather than use a moldboard plow. Disc rather than till. Cultivate middles rather than disc. Less damage to the soil and tractor. I’m seeing more cultivators used in middles.

The root pruning of tree field liners one year prior to harvest provides better, larger, more fibrous root systems. This is not the same thing as root pruning just prior to transplanting into a balling spacing.

Protect bareroot plants from drying out. Do not drive them around at 60 mph without a tarp.

Place hand-dug B&B plants back in their hole until hauled for protection from dehydration and cold injury.