SGR on B&B tree

ATH

ATH

Been here much more than a while
Location
Findlay, Ohio
A lot of B&B trees (most?) come deep. Many of those have stem girdling roots at least starting.

Found the worst so far this year on a fir:

I did successfully cut and "excavate" it, so hopefully the tree will now be able to thrive. Pics:
*First, just what it looked like when I pulled soil away looking for the flare.
SGR on fir (Small).jpg

*Second, that same pic, with a red line in the middle of the root that goes 360 degrees around the trunk. Brown dots were soil line in burlap.
SGR highlighted (Small).jpg

*Finally, a picture of that same surface after I removed the root. Had to straighten it as the pic was taken crooked, which is why the corners of the pic are cut off. As you can see that depression is an inch deep...
SGR removed (Small).jpg




here is an 'intermediate pic' when I started chiseling away at the "front". Admittedly, it makes me a little 'nervous' "is that really a root, or just a wrinkle in regular growth?". As soon as you cut in and see the grain going the wrong way, it confirms what I knew. Here you can see that last moment of confirmation: Remove the root and see bark under it.
20211124_142528 (Small).jpg
 
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Good post and sad to see how often this happens. Good reminder of how fast SGR’s will take their toll. I have advised clients to take their trees back to the nursery and the nurseries tend to tell them that their arborist does t know what he is talking about. Always fun to throw out ANSI 60.1 and that tends to get decent results.
 
I sent pics to nursery. We'll see what they say. My hope would be that they warrant it for a year. I bought it wholesale, so no warranty included. I think this tree will make it since we freed it...but would appreciate that from the nursery.
 
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Good post and good evidence why we should throughly excavate newly planted trees. Many come with sgrs or the potential for them from the get go.
It’s too bad 90% of the people installing trees will not bother to check.
 
ATH said:
A lot of B&B trees (most?) come deep. Many of those have stem girdling roots at least starting.

Found the worst so far this year on a fir:

I did successfully cut and "excavate" it, so hopefully the tree will now be able to thrive. Pics:
*First, just what it looked like when I pulled soil away looking for the flare.
View attachment 78981

*Second, that same pic, with a red line in the middle of the root that goes 360 degrees around the trunk. Brown dots were soil line in burlap.
View attachment 78980

*Finally, a picture of that same surface after I removed the root. Had to straighten it as the pic was taken crooked, which is why the corners of the pic are cut off. As you can see that depression is an inch deep...
View attachment 78982




here is an 'intermediate pic' when I started chiseling away at the "front". Admittedly, it makes me a little 'nervous' "is that really a root, or just a wrinkle in regular growth?". As soon as you cut in and see the grain going the wrong way, it confirms what I knew. Here you can see that last moment of confirmation: Remove the root and see bark under it.
View attachment 78983
Click to expand...
Yep, nursery stock often sucks. Below is a pagoda dogwood with similiar indentation from girdling
20211009_135811.jpg
 
ATH said:
I sent pics to nursery. We'll see what they say. My hope would be that they warrant it for a year. I bought it wholesale, so no warranty included. I think this tree will make it since we freed it...but would appreciate that from the nursery.
Click to expand...
The nursery ANSI and most nursery folks never mention excavating to find the root flare and most don't even advocate removing burlap or cages to any extent
 
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We do remove the top two rings on the basket, burlap on top along with the twine, but find trees to be unstable when removing them from all of the B&B. We have a great success rate.
 
Most of the time, we are able to keep the root ball in tact removing everything. We don't use a spade. Unless it is a big tree (I almost refuse to plant anything mover 3"...just too much PIA all around), we are rolling them into the hole by hand.
1) Pull burlap off from top to find root collar. Measure depth and make sure hole is correct depth.
2) Laying tree on its side right next to the hole, cut off the bottom ring. Cut a "T" in the burlap.
3) Run that T all the way up one side and cut all but the top ring or two of the cage on that side.
4) Roll into hole.
5) Cut that last ring or 2 and pull cage and burlap off.
6) if the ball falls apart....I don't care. Either way, when we walk away you have roots in the ground and soil around them. Less than 5% of the trees need staked.

I do understand leaving the bottom of the cage on to make it easier to lower into the hole and I don't think that makes a lick of difference in the long-term.

I don't know how anybody can justify planting without AT LEAST taking the burlap and twine off from around the trunk, but we see it all the time...and the top of the wire cage sticking up out of the ground.
 
@VenasNursery do you plant just stuff you grow or do you buy B&B from other wholesalers as well?

How's your depth when you dig your own stuff? I assume you aren't going to say "like crap!"...but I do understand there are challenges at the nursery trying to get trees in quickly, having container stock that was too deep before you plant it out (I assume that was the case with this Fir). I guess what I'm getting at is "is it practical for nurseries to grow stock at a correct depth?" or is it just a reality that we are going to have to fix that at planting because of the complexity of nursery production. Finally... how's the depth of what you are get from other wholesalers (if you do that)?
 
The trees we grow are mainly larger trees for our 90 “ spade. We have niche in that market by us because no one has a 90”, 25 mi from us. We also use a 48 in spade for transplanting. We order smaller stock 2.5 and below for hand planting and customer pickup. We find our wholesaler to have quality product and normally only deal through them. We have not experienced any depth issues them at all. Unlike other wholesalers we have dealt with in the past.

First we hand dig the holes and measure the ball for proper depth and width. We don’t augur holes due to the augur can glaze the holes which is bad for the roots trying to grow it. Plus I feel we can do a cleaner job with less clean up by hand digging.

Second we place tree in hole and the remove top burlap and twine. Along with the baskets first two rows.

We fill in the hole around the tree with topsoil.

We also recommend bone meal in the holes to help promote root growth.
 
You mind sharing which wholesale nursery (nurseries) you use?

Looks like you are only an hour and a half from me...so may be another source fore to use too. Thanks!
 
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