Has anyone ever built a tractor mounted tree planter?

[garth mc garth]

Looking for pointers on building a linkage mounted tree whip planter to go behind my tractors as I'm getting quite a bit of planting work these days. Looking at pictures on the Internet of various machines I reckon I could build one easily enough but would be interested in people's input.

I thought of having it mounted on a sliding headstock so that you could off set it to allow planting tight to fences and ditches etc

[woody paul]

Some people convert veg planters, may be easy to start with or rob bits off one. The only problem with off setting is the pull on the tractor and keeping straight. May find you have to cultivate a strip first so there's less side pull.

[garth mc garth]

Its going on a 190hp tractor that's weighted up so fingers crossed it shouldn't pull it about too much. I didn't want to cultivate the first site as its up on the north downs which is all flint and was hoping not to bring it all up to the surface.

[combined tree services]

a friend of mine built his own veg planter , he can plant up too three rows ant a time and has developed the system to either plant one, two or three rows and can stagger the planting as well . The only drawback is having to have three people on the back feeding it !! that being said even as a veg planter it can handle small whips

[HCR]

I've never used one, but when I was setting up a short rotation willow coppice once there was talk of modifying cabbage planters for the job. Ok, that was for unrooted cuttings as opposed to whips but I'm sure the idea would still work.

[arbwork]

MJF Whip Planter | eBay this one may still be available

[garth mc garth]

MJF Whip Planter | eBay this one may still be available

 

I found that literally minutes after the auction ended, would of been ideal for what I wanted.

[renewablejohn]

Used `a mole plough for planting whips in the past. 3 inch pipe behind the mole plough blade originally used for pipe laying but adapted for whips by cutting a 1 inch slot in the pipe.

[Hogs Breath]

Try a few local tree nurserys they must have some old kit laying around.

[tommytopsoil]

As regards the offset, I would go down the lines of a plough headstock with adjustable front furrow width. If you can find one in a breakers with a hydraulic front furrow then even better. Ellis Machinery might be a good place to start.

The Kverneland 200 series headstock would suit this quite well and you could fairly easily extend it to get the travel required.

 

Not the best pic, but you might get the idea?

 

As far as strength goes, I would be tempted to go with a plough type frame too (Dowdeswell DP8 set up would be a good example) with a brace coming out from the headstock and finishing up quite a way back.

This would help you get a more linear pull from nearer the centre line of the tractor and help prevent you from tearing it apart with a couple of hundred ponies.

 

Far better the tractor pulls round a bit than you snap the planter in two...

 

Good luck.