Paul MH

Bumping this because it's that time of year again! 

I did  a few beat up sites last season, Stoke Wood's comment above rang in my ears on the third one, which turned out to be a lot of work for little return. 

Now they've offered me a few more contracts this year, much of which is the same sort of stuff, but some are beat ups with new guards - again, how to price these? My experience of planting with guards and stakes is that they take quite a while. What would be a reasonable expectation of unit price on their part? I'm thinking in the region of £1.30 - £1.70 - would this be wildly shy of the mark? 

2 hours ago, Vedhoggar said:

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. 

The site had a sheep incursion they reckon they lost 50% before the sheep were removed and the fencing repaired. It's been a clear fell five years ago but well raked. Still some awkward parcels of land, in particular a steep bank above an access road, in a kind of long finger above the site. I didn't think more than 40 an hour, so I guess I'll price on that basis? 

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.

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. 

Any recommendations for business insurance for a tree planting business? 

Thanks

22 hours ago, Khriss said:

How many and type of trees??  K

30k conifers for the 10ha site. The tender includes some smaller plots made up of restocks of mixed conifers and broadleaf.

Quick bit of advice - my first tender since I decided to go back to tree planting after a long hiatus - tender includes one plot of "hinge mounding" planting - what are the implications for pricing? its a 10ha site.

Also, any recommendations for on site storage of saplings? I expect to take delivery (bagged) of a weeks worth at a time from the client's base and want to make sure they're adequately stored until needed?

Thanks in advance

Hullo I'm Paul, first post to the forum, I did my apprenticeship in the FC in Scotland almost 40(!) years ago but haven't really worked in the sector since, I'm hoping to get back into tree planting work as a result of a geographical move to an area which seems to have a real need for planters so I might be asking all kinds of stupid questions! Starting with - how do I change my display name?