Pricing up a beat up

[Paul MH]

Hullo - help me out, would you? 

OK so I have a long boring back story which is probably of no interest to anyone but myself - bottom line is I decided during lockdown that I wanted  a change of life, I'm tentatively including tree planting as something I'd like to get into (I planted 000's of sitka as a kid). My local forestry approached me and asked if I would be interested in doing a smal beat up for them on a site planted two years ago, up to 6000 trees, mostly broadleaves, 1200 Scots pine. Thing is I have no idea how to price it up. They know I'm a novice, they told me they'd expect to pay .28 to .30 a tree, this seems low t me for a beat up? 

Any advice gratefully received. 

[Moose McAlpine]

£1,800 to plant 6,000 trees?

 

Rather you than me..

[muttley9050]

30p a tree?

[dumper]

30 pence per tree mmmmmm! So can you hit 40 trees per hour for 8 -10 hours including walking getting plants walking back to refill finding dead trees, I suggest you try it out find a plantation and walk it with a timer and if you can hit 40 trees an hour you will earn £12.00 / hr 

My view is too cheap beating up takes longer than initial planting 

[openspaceman]

5 minutes ago, dumper said:

30 pence per tree mmmmmm! So can you hit 40 trees per hour for 8 -10 hours including walking getting plants walking back to refill finding dead trees, I suggest you try it out find a plantation and walk it with a timer and if you can hit 40 trees an hour you will earn £12.00 / hr 

My view is too cheap beating up takes longer than initial planting 

Best I ever did was 1500 larch 50cm @1p a tree lots of times below 600, mind basic wage was £19/week then.

 

Beating up with no guards was often quicker than planting as you didn't need to set up the boning rods to keep your lines straight.

 

Guarded trees and stakes a completely different ball game.

[dumper]

3 minutes ago, openspaceman said:

Best I ever did was 1500 larch 50cm @1p a tree lots of times below 600, mind basic wage was £19/week then.

 

Beating up with no guards was often quicker than planting as you didn't need to set up the boning rods to keep your lines straight.

 

Guarded trees and stakes a completely different ball game.

That must have been when Lloyd George was prime minister

[openspaceman]

2 minutes ago, dumper said:

That must have been when Lloyd George was prime minister

He may have known my father

 

It was 1974 my next major attempt at planting was cell grown corsican in 1995 and I didn't get above 500, not done much planting since.

[dumper]

Always planted with guard and stake,can now look back.  at planting I did in the early eighties they are now trees quite satisfying 

[Paul MH]

Thanks all

7 hours ago, Moose McAlpine said:

£1,800 to plant 6,000 trees?

 

Rather you than me..

As I thought - the site is raked, fairly steep in places - what would you consider to be a reasonable price? There are no guards or stakes, just notch planting and heeling in.

 

[Vedhoggar]

Beating up rate - depends on plant size, how much searching involved, ground conditions, if a flat site or or slope, access to site needs to be considered too and experience will of course influence output (takes about a planting season for someone to get up to speed). A skilled person might beat up something like 30 - 60 trees/hr on a reasonably flat site with reasonably good ground conditions, if not too much searching involved, if on a slope add maybe 10-15% to the price. If a local site you might do 7.5 hrs on site but if some distance from home it might be more like 6 hrs on site. You could walk the site and see how long it takes you to find the trees which have to be replaced and estimate how long it might take to plant a tree. You also want the correct type of planting spade for ground conditions or a planting mattock might be the best tool, especially if working on a slope.