Rootballs versus Bareroot your opinions

[Goaty]

At present it seems rootballs are poplular despite their increased costs in these tighter value times, whilst I understand that certain species suffer less transplant shock, pyrus, conifers and evergreens such as taxus(yew) when rootballed.

 

Personally I see little if any real advantage to plant rootballed bareroot broadleaves of most species. I reckon the landscape industries and associated treecare sectors would benefit more from education on improving bareroot planting success and offsetting the costs of balling in this way, such as quicker nursery lifting to plant times, site preparation, post planting care balancing of root to top pruning prior to planting, perhaps if the nursery did this would it be worth paying a premium? The tree has been ripped out the ground by machinery and lost a significant portion of its finer feed and water root system Disadvantages I can think of are.

 

1. Increased costs in tree and haulage & handling.

 

2. Safety issues due to heavier weight involved.

 

3. Slower productivity.

 

4. Greater chance of introducing invasive weeds and other contaminates/diseases to site,

 

5. More difficult to replace failures.

 

6. More reinstatement work on site needed due to handling equipment tracks and ruts, soil displacement or disposal.

 

7. Metal baskets/nets that fail to corrode, restricting root development

 

8. Some rootballs are actually lifted bareroot trees, bundled into a hessian and basket with soil and are not lifted rootballs, so no real gain.

 

9 Damaged by being rolled off trucks and the impacted root system can be severely damaged but not seen.

 

10. Shrinkage or waterlogging of the ball post planting due to soil differences, e.g clay ball in sand.

 

Whilst I realise this is only a one sided view I would like to hear your pros and cons or either. I also realise some companies do I fantastic job of moving large trees and supplying excellent stock this is not intended to discredit this kind of rootballing. Im thinking of mainly 5 metres maximum or less in height. Pot grown is often of better quality as it has had tlc, root pruning and formative pruning to make a better transplant.

I personally think its been read or taught to those in managerial positions as a generalisation. Because everybody else does it they dare not risk or challenge the convention. I would on a individual merit according to tree type and site.

 

[Old Mill Tree Care]

Good post Goaty but I'm afraid I can't offer any snippets of wisdom because i've been thinking about this during the last week and formed exactly the same views as you. We've planted some fairly big trees this year and the costs incurred to the client were high due to difficulties moving the heavy rootball on site.

 

To me it just doesn't make sense to have many of the trees in root balled form.

 

I also get more enjoyment planting a bare root tree, filling all the spaces by hand and knowing that I've done a good job and the tree will prosper. I don't have that same certainty with a root ball.

[bob]

Agreed entirely

Also footballs need watering regularly as they have generally been used to that.

Personally most of the trees I am involved with are st trees and have found footballs planted in very poor soil rubble Tarmac ect don't get established as little reason to put new roots out and bare rooted take better if hardly any nutrients put in they just seem to buckle down and fight to live.

Obviously every area is different but those are the main reasons I use bare rather balled.

The cost of watering is fenominal

[likeitorlumpit]

good post- I hate rootballed especially as size increases.

[hedgesparrow]

i buy plants bare rooted but unlike some i have had with very little roots sytem left the chances of getting them to grow is less lickley. so i buy mine from murrey Mc clean oxford all little plants have a very good roots system so need a hole to put in to get roots in not had any die as yet. his larger stuff is as good.

just need to find a good grower who knows his or hers stuff. so you know the plants will grow

[elicokiz]

Just interested to know what size of tree you guys are talking about, surely there is a finite size a bareroot tree can be as far as lifting and reinstating is concerned?

[easy-lift guy]

In the past when trees were required to be bare root ball for certain jobs, I tried real hard to avoid these bids for all of the reasons already given. The only exception would be for B/B Citrus trees from a known supplier. Otherwise I only use container grown stock for many advantages that B/B material can never compete with.

easy-lift guy

[Goaty]

Just interested to know what size of tree you guys are talking about, surely there is a finite size a bareroot tree can be as far as lifting and reinstating is concerned?

 

Im thinking up to 16-18cm girth at 1m as a general idea, as for bareroot maximum sizing if good nursery practice is undertaken where transplanting is undertaken during nursery production and subsequent post planting tlc is well maintained.

this is based on my own observation in container tree production, were bareroot plants are much larger than this and potted. Failure rate is very low and recovery is within a growing season.

 

I think an advantage of rootballs is they are less susceptible to windrocking due to solid anchor in exposed locations.

[Goaty]

Found this, it's says overall barefoot makes more sense

http://www.barchampro.co.uk/sites/default/files/anella_et_al_2008_growth_of_bb_vs_br_trees.pdf

 

 

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[Paul Barton]

Found this, it's says overall barefoot makes more sense

http://www.barchampro.co.uk/sites/default/files/anella_et_al_2008_growth_of_bb_vs_br_trees.pdf

 

 

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