“Hot” Planting Can Result In Cost Savings, Early Growth And Better Survival

F&W foresters are continually seeking new and innovative approaches to assist clients in getting the most from their forests. In the latest In the Woods feature article, we take an in-depth look at “hot” planting, when land is reforested in the fall rather than the traditional winter planting season.

While tree planting traditionally occurs in January through March, several F&W managers are finding success with planting in the fall months, before the cold and rainy weather that typically begins towards the end of the year. We talked with three managers in different geographical regions about their experiences with “hot” planting.

WHY PLANT WHEN IT’S HOT?

Bryan Croft, manager in north Florida, said he became interested in hot planting because the shortage of mechanical tree planters in his market is an issue. The sandy soils in his area don’t allow for good compaction of bareroot seedlings planted by hand. For hot planting, he recommends hand planting containerized seedlings.

“Bareroot can work also in a good situation,” Croft said. “I have seen bareroot planted in September with good results; however, this is not the norm.”

With hot planting, he sees early growth and better survival because rainfall is expected in December, there are more available contractors, and planting crews do not have to fight the mud and water like they do later in the season.

Glen Worrell, the manager based in Virginia, says he also plants containerized seedlings in the fall, and the only viable option is to hand plant, due to the lack of available machine planting crews. He notes, “If planted in the fall, bareroot seedlings will not have time to acclimate to the site and begin growing roots to withstand the winter conditions.”

Worrell said he went from planting 100 percent bareroot seedlings in 2020 to 85 percent containerized this year, with the primary reasons to extend the planting season and work around the shortage of planting labor. His typical planting season begins in mid-January and runs through midto late March, although that can be interrupted with severe winter weather in February. Fall planting also allows him to reduce costs on mechanical site prep (bedding). “We felt we could potentially forgo the need to bed if we were able to plant in drier months, and October is typically drier than

February or March.” He cautions that planting in the fall does not eliminate the need to bed on all sites.

Eric Sumner, whose region includes Arkansas, Louisiana, and northeast Texas, also notes that planting in the fall can save clients money on mechanical site prep, particularly when using tractors to plant container seedlings on marginal ground. He only uses containerized seedlings and plants exclusively using machines. After noticing that growth in the first year seemed better than planting during traditional months, he has moved to machine planting everything he possibly can earlier in the season.

“Survival is good enough that you can plant fewer trees per acre. Also, the seedlings are planted in the growing season and are putting on root growth before going dormant and when they come out of dormancy, they put on a lot of new growth above the ground.”

Timing And Labor

Sumner’s early planting season starts in October and runs through November. He has planted into December but the weather is typically getting wet which makes planting marginal ground more difficult with machines. He said labor can be a challenge and with more companies planting early, he expects it will become more of a problem in the future.

Croft tries to plant between September and November, although he said some landowners prefer to plant containerized longleaf in August. His goal is to complete all planting by Thanksgiving and at least by Christmas. This helps keep him out of sync with other planting crews, although labor is still an issue for early planting, with H-2B visas

(continued on page 5) turning over in mid-October.

Worrell says his typical window for hot planting is mid-October through mid- to late November, and in Virginia, he must be cognizant of the frost heave, so seedlings need time to grow before the temperature drops and the trees shut down. While they now consider hot planting for all properties, the harsh winters require more selectivity. He is more cautious the closer he gets to the Blue Ridge Mountains and further north. Labor is not as much of an issue in the fall as in the spring.

Great Results

Croft in Florida says he sees the survival rates across the two seasons as the same but the major difference is that seedlings planted hot perform better with an average tree height between three and six feet at the end of the first growing season. “In some ideal circumstances, we see 7-foot-tall seedlings; however, those are rare.” He added that on one tract, they have seedlings planted in November across the road from others planted in March and the seedlings planted earlier look a year older. He notes they plant the same trees per acre (TPA) as normal timing, generally around 550 TPA unless cost-share programs require otherwise.

Sumner says that he has seen good survival rates on some very wet sites that would not have had the same results if they were not bedded first when planted in the traditional season. “On good, adequately drained ground, we are looking into planting fewer seedlings per acre since the survival is so good.” He sees better growth rates with planting early—since the trees are planted in the tail end of a growing season, they put on root growth before going dormant—even if they look rough until the next growing season. He typically plants 518 TPA and is experimenting with fewer trees by using more advanced genetics on some good sites this year.

In Virginia, Worrell says he sees better growth with hot planting. “We used to be happy if the seedlings just survived the first year after planting. With planting containerized seedlings in the fall, we now see seedlings between two and three feet tall after the first season and six feet tall after the second growing season.” He says their typical bareroot spacing was 622 TPA but dropped to 545 with containerized seedlings.

Plan Ahead

For hot planting, managers stressed the importance of notifying the nurseries well in advance to make sure they have the necessary seedlings and seasonal labor to pull and deliver them. Worrell suggests working with the nursery when the seeds are sown (February or March) to ensure the nursery is aware of the number of seedlings needed for fall and to alter its management regime (watering, fertilization, etc.) so that seedlings have 6-millimeter root collar diameter by mid-October. He adds the nurseries need to plan ahead to coordinate their labor crews to lift some seedlings early.

Croft notes that when pulling hot from the nursery, seedlings can go through a heat cycle. In the fall, when pulling quickly, it is harder for the nursery to remove the “field heat” before loading them into a refrigerated van. Adequate notice to the nursery can help minimize the heat cycle, which can be extreme depending upon the situation.

“Speed is a must! Planting fast is critical. This can, without good supervision in the field, create situations where planters miss areas or don’t do good work. We try to plant 50,000 to 60,000 container seedlings per day so we empty a refrigerated van every two to four days. Our foresters are with the planters every day, all day, while planting,” Croft said. Labor can also be an issue. Worrell said that planting crews in Virginia are not typically geared up for planting in October, so they need to be coordinated in advance. Croft says in his area, tree planters are often not ready until mid-October when the H-2B visas turn over. And Sumner added that October can be very dry in his area, so they run the risk of not having sufficient ground moisture at the time of planting, causing a delay until November or December, which then creates a problem with labor.

Another critical consideration is coordinating the timing of chemical site prep, which must be completed at least three months before planting,

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