what implement do I need?

[Lockport]

I have four acres sitting idle for 10 years that I believe was farmed sometime before that. I began cutting it a few times a season about 4 years ago. I want to plant a crop of Colarado Spruce trees for landscape purposes and am curious as to field prep. I think a single or even double 14" plow with coulter and then I am not sure. Do I want a rake.or a diskharrow? I am kind of leaning towards a harrow but a rake or a split rake may offer better management in the first year or two of saplings growth.
Thx

 

[sweettractors]

If the field has a good stand of grass sod, I would leave it alone. Put your trees in rows so you can brush hog between them both ways (checker board layout). When you put them in the sod, put a stove pipe around each seedling and spray a 3 ft circle of roundup around each seedling. This will let the seedlings get a start with no competition from the grass or weeds. I used this method on 1000 white pines and they are now 40-50 ft tall. Ken Sweet

 

[teg]

We use our 12" post hole auger to make the hole for the trees. Leave the grass around the trees. We use the 4" corrugated black plastic pipe around the base. 6"-8" long and slice up the side, put it around the base of the tree so we can weedwack around them.

 

[Lockport]

Very good tips. Thanks for the insight. I am going to pole & beam fence the field but I get deer and am also worried about them munching on my saplings. Stove pipes sounds interesing. I have also seen plastic nets from Forrestry Supply that the saplings grow within.

 

[flusher]

I have four acres sitting idle for 10 years that I believe was farmed sometime before that. I began cutting it a few times a season about 4 years ago. I want to plant a crop of Colarado Spruce trees for landscape purposes and am curious as to field prep. I think a single or even double 14" plow with coulter and then I am not sure. Do I want a rake.or a diskharrow? I am kind of leaning towards a harrow but a rake or a split rake may offer better management in the first year or two of saplings growth.
Thx

You need to get someone with a backhoe and dig a few trenches 3-4 ft deep on your 4 acres and examine the soil strata. YOu're looking for hardpan clay layers. If you find these within a few feet of the surface, you need to do some deep plowing.

Around here we have a lot of olive, almond, English walnut, and prune plum orchards. The first step in establishing a new orchard is to rip the soil with a subsoiler to 2-3 ft depth. It takes heavy duty equipment (Cats) to do this work. Don't know about your spruce trees, but I don't think it would be advisable to expect that species to punch roots through hardpan.