Just wondered if anyone elses shares my frustration with the performance of bare root maple stock. Of the half-dozen or so nurseries I have mail order stock from, one nursery always sends true bare root trees. These trees have never performed well for me. True bare root meaning all soil removed if any existed and the roots packed in moist peat, in contrast to a reduced root mass or tube of some kind with soil still attached. I understand the practice, or necessity of practice for shipping purposes, but it seems my handling and shipping costs are the same whether I get a VERY BARE root tree or one with and equally sized root mass, but with some soil attached. So with that said, is it common, as it seems intuitive to me, that a tree fully bare rooted will take longer to establish in a pot than a tree with the same REDUCED root mass, but with soil attached. Secondly, I will admit that I must be doing something wrong as I find 90% of my bare root trees near the brink of death on their initial potting, but with a repotting in the same season, I can achieve minimal growth. This process has cost me a couple of trees, but generally I feel like I am wasting an entire growing season. I receive a tree in spring and plant in a pot; I then watch it through most of the summer while is flounders and then a repotting in late summer seems to revive the struggling specimen. In contrast, give me a little soil instead of a peat-packed rootball and I can do wonders. My point is not to suggest a deficiency in the bare root stock, but instead better understand the problem. I usually use a prepackaged non-soil mix of forest humus, find ground bark, perlite, etc. Should the bare root trees go in to a small fir bark mix for more oxygen? Regardless of care, do the roots of the bare roots trees come damaged and need some special care?
Hi Michael: You are in a problematic area that has caused many a discussion in the past. There are no right or wrong answers for this one but what you have experienced is fairly common. I know of a conservation tree grower that sells seedlings of a large variety of trees. When municipalities would buy those trees there seemed to be about a 50% loss the first year. The grower claims that was due to mishandling once the trees arrived and due to the soil mixes being too rich in comparison to his field grown soil. There is a grain of truth in the above in that the field grown trees are not grown in a rich soil with high amounts of organic matter, nor having a lot of available nutrients either. We can shock a seedling by giving it too rich a medium to grow in. I've had plants come in here without soil and also in containers. If given a choice I would prefer the plants to be in their own soil and left in the container when they arrive to me. We always grew our own seedlings as we felt that our plants would have more vigor than if we were to bring in plants from elsewhere, especially true for Maples and deciduous Magnolias and Michelias. Conifer and Dogwood seedlings brought in for grafting stock may be a different story as we had good luck with Pinus Strobus and Thunbergiana root stock from a grower in Oregon. For many years the Maple growers I know or knew in Oregon would bring in seedlings for them to graft. I've always felt that it was better to grow your own as from a physiological standpoint I felt our seeds were better adapted to our growing conditions and the resulting seedlings would have much more vigor than seedlings would have from elsewhere. We did some trials of our own and we found conclusive proof that our own grown seedlings had a higher percentage take when we grafted them. The key is the root system and with a stronger root system we can produce a better plant. Field grown seedlings and even greenhouse seedlings do not have the root system ours can have even grown in a container out in the field. I know of a prominent dwarf Citrus grower that feels the same way about his seedlings as opposed to bringing in someone else's. For best results grow your own. If you must buy seedlings then ask the specialty growers in Oregon who are they buying from but mail order types are a crap shoot. Sometimes we get lucky and then there are times when we are not so fortunate. I would only consider someone that has been supplying wholesale nurseries that I know of and can monitor their results. Jim
Just lost my whole next post..I'll have to try again when I can clear my head. I think I had decided to change the title of my thread to: HOW TO ENGOURAGE GROWTH OF THE MOST DENSE ROOT MASS ON STOCK OF ACER PALMATUM WHEN THE SPECIMEN ARRIVE ENTIRELY BARE ROOT? This came from the fact that when a small amount of soil is present, it seems to "buffer" root growth so that a dense root mass develops. When a bare root tree is planted in the same mix, without benefit of the original soil it was cultivated in, it struggles. This of course specific to a humus,decayed bark, perlite mix of relatively dense consitency, all would likely do well in fir bark, but I don't see the coarse bark mix as a good long term solution, so I try to move my trees to a more dense mix as early a possible. Is there some staging necessary, or are the bare root trees missing benifical fungi that we might assume live in the soil bound plants? Is it as simple as adding a "tree starter pak" to the planting. MJH
Barerooting and storage/shipping kills most of the fine roots. Established container-grown stock still has all its roots.
< HOW TO ENGOURAGE GROWTH OF THE MOST DENSE ROOT MASS ON STOCK OF ACER PALMATUM WHEN THE SPECIMEN ARRIVE ENTIRELY BARE ROOT? > I'll stick my neck out on this one. A lot depends on whether we are getting bare root understock or are we receiving a named variety bare root? I've seen plants come into a few nurseries as bare root seedlings rather than coming in as cells. Personally, I do not like bare root seedlings for Maples at all. I will not grow them and I know of times when certain nurseries sent the plants back to the sender when they arrived bare root. If we bought conservation trees or seedlings thereof or from a Mid-West mail order house, then the plants may just arrive to us bare root but seedlings sold to us with no prior designation that the tree or trees would be arriving sans the soil is an entirely different matter. It is us, the buyer, that should have the choice to have the plant shipped in bare root or in a container or perhaps have the roots with soil encapsulated in plastic. When we assume the plant is being shipped in with a root ball we should expect to see a plant with a root ball. Should the nursery or supplier send us what we were not expecting, in view of our order and not expressed beforehand, then we have the right to refuse the shipment. Ron is correct in that storage of a root system for any length of time will cause injury to the plant. We know it is true no matter what anyone else may say but there are some plants that can adapt better to cold storage than others. I am not opposed to Roses being held in cold storage after they have been dug up in early Fall and then put into storage to be shipped a few months later. I am much more opposed to the waxing of the plant which can inhibit Spring growth here and the Roses were grown here to start with, in and around Wasco, California. Root systems on Japanese Maples is a different story as when many root systems are still living, even in frozen areas, Maple roots are in a state of flux whereby the roots are not initiating a lot of growth during the Winter, regardless of location. When we put the bare root trees in cold storage we in effect kill off some of the root hairs on the root system. We do not have a strong, root system to start with and then we injure the roots just to hold the plants over prior to shipment at a better time. Unless we know in advance that the variety of Maple we are to receive will be coming in bare root from the supplier then we acknowledge the impropriety otherwise should we accept the shipment. Sometimes, it has to be the principle that we follow, even if it costs a buck or two, in that I would rather send back the plants and pay for the return shipping if need be, rather than risk losing 50% of that stock in the next two years. I've seen growers lose that many bare root seedlings that have come into them in the above length of time. Why would I risk losing a Toyo nishiki coming in to me bare root? If I initially ordered five or more of them then losing one is not a big deal but if I only ordered one and it does not live to see its third year then I will not be happy about my ordering from that nursery again. I think with bare root trees that the old sentiment we "old timers" had still applies today in that any named variety sold to us and arrives to us bare root is quite unprofessional of the grower that shipped us the plant. Especially true if we did not know the plant was to arrive to us bare root in the first place. Growing a dense root mass on a bare root plant is a challenge as we do not know how much damage was done to the plant from the time it was pulled out of the ground or grown in a peat pot or cell in a greenhouse, the length of time the plant was in cold storage, the mishandling that may have occurred to the time we received the plant. I've had plants come from allover the US to me here and in many cases it is better that the plants come in without soil for the Ag Commissioner's Plant Inspection. That is just a given that we have to deal with in California but when people here ship to elsewhere, bare root, is it not due to state standards here that warrants a mandate on that kind of shipping. Some people want to save on shipping costs so they can apply more of their incurred cost on buying a few more plants than paying the cost for shipping in containers. I'll opt for the containers any day and every time but that is just me. Growing a healthy root system is for another day and perhaps another thread as well. Jim
Thanks Jim: Sorry for my delay. I have been pretty busy as well as struggling a bit with my own thread and wondering what direction or what knowledge I hoped to gain. From the simple postion of a collector snf individual buyer of named cultivars rather than large quantities of any particular sock for resale or propagation, I can gather the obvious recommendation of the need to act as informed buyer. I this case my frustration is dervied from the purchase of named cultivars in mail-order situations that have arrived in various conditions and that have performed across a wide spectrum. Knowing that I treat all my maples with similar practices and care, I could only assume that lack of quality or vigor in some subset of trees must be attributed to some factor. It so happens that this subset was largely the trees I received bareroot. As you point out, I could never understand that reason for receiving trees in this manner, without any soil, but with no history or experience in the matter, I could only assume it was acceptable practice. After watching the tree perform compared to cultivars recieved with some rootball intact, I could only assume that bareroot specimens represent a challenge to the grower to induce health and vigor. It seemed clear, as Ron points out, that some damage must have been done while preparing the bareroot specimens for shipment, I always assumed that the damage could easily be overcome with proper care and culture. While this maybe be true, the time lost in establishing health and reviving traumatized maples is time the tree could be growing if prepared and shipped properly by the grower. In addition, the fragility of bareroot trees clearly puts them at higher risk for disease and untimely death. While many species of shrubs and trees may be well-suited to the bareroot shipping process, it is clear that maples are not, especially in the case where they may be exposed to cold-storage situations in transition. Although I do not clearly understand all that may be required to grow maples with healthy root systems, I do now undestand what quality to look for when selecting trees-the revival and growth of root systems can be left to another thread and another time. We can close the book on this one.
