Moving Trees

[HarleyBob]

I am going to rent a B21 with backhoe to move some trees on my property.(I have a L3010 with no
backhoe and find it cheaper to rent one when needed).
What is the best way to dig up small to medium size trees, lets say up to 6 or 8 inch diameter?
What is the technique to use to best insure that the tree will survive. I will
not be doing this till late fall when trees are dormant.

 

[RobS]

HarleyBob, you won't necessarily like this answer, but the "best" way to move trees is with a tree spade. 6-8 inch trees are actually pretty big in terms of moving. We had a tree moved a couple years ago to add on to our house. The guy came with a tandem axle tree spade, largest one in our area. He said he can only handle up to about 10 inch trees and that was with an 8 foot diameter ball (cone).

Someone else will have to comment about using the backhoe. Seems to me, you'd have to be digging on the opposite side of the tree and the hoe would have to go right through the tree.

One more thing, even with a tree spade and professional mover, the tree was in "shock" for two years. Just now it's starting to look good again. Hope this helps /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[mdbarb]

Not knowing what kind of trees these are, I'll toss out my experience. In a perfect world you would want to keep as much soil around the root ball as the "drip line" of the tree.
Some exceptions are trees like palms. We recently installed some trees shipped from the nursery in 72" sq. boxes, they had an 8" dia. trunk and each one weighed 13,000 (!) pounds. Needless to say we had a crane take them off the truck and place them. BTW cranes are surprisingly cheap considering the ability to easily adjust the location, angle, orientation compared to a tractor. I own a B21 but it wasn't much help in this situation. I guess you could dig the perimeter with it. Don't water it for awhile before digging it out and dig a considerably larger hole and add some good soil/compost and mulch the top afterwards. create a bit of a ring around it to hold water. If you have several of these, there are special vehicles with huge 4 point spades that surround the tree dig it out and move it 1,2,3.
Good luck!

 

[Kubota-monkey]

Greetings Harley-Bob,

I moved some trees recently however I wasnt planning on keeping them alive. These were more "removal." I have an L35 w/ hoe and these trees were no easy task for that machine. They were about 4-6 inches in diameter except that i remeber that I tore plenty of roots out while digging up the root system. I you plan on not damaging the roots you will have to dig approx. 5 feet out from the tree.
Good Luck



The Ben from MA /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

 

[radman]

I agree with RobS. I think you will need a tree spade and a large one. My brother has a 44" spade which will handle trees up to 4-6 inches. 1200lb dirt ball plus weight of tree. Trees above 6 inches are risky for survival with his spade. If you are not transporting the trees far it maybe best to hire someone to move them. I don't see how a B21 and backhoe could do this. In my area, a typical tree spade will cost $200-250/hour including operator. (May cost more for a large spade.) These guys can move several trees in a hour if the trees don't need to be transported very far.

 

[dmccarty]

HarleyBob,

I think you need a tree spade. I have a JD 4700 with a JD48 backhoe. I've dug up 200-300 stumps that were from 2 inches up to 36 inches. Most are in the 3-8 inche range. You MIGHT be able to dig carefully around the the tree trunk but that is very hard to do without hitting the tree. It only takes one bad move at the controls and you are going to wack the tree trunk and tear off bark.

Another problem as others have said is that you would have to dig to the drip line of the tree. Dont forget you have to dig UNDER that drip line to get the ball out of the ground. That would be hard if not impossible to do with a backhoe.

The third concern is does the tree in question have a tap root? I've seen tap roots on 3-5 inch hardwood stumps going down 2-3 FEET.

Once past the above three concerns/problems how are you going to move the root ball with the tractor without further damage? If you have a ball 4-5 feet across, a couple of feet deep, will your tractor be able to lift it in the FEL? I'm thinking one might need pallet forks to get a good hold on the root ball....

Since I'm digging up stumps I don't have to worry about such concerns. I just dig 'em out and push 'em if I can't lift 'em. There have been a couple in the 24 inch plus size that are push only. And one 36 inch monster that was barely pushable.

I think your best bet is the tree spade. Its likely in the same price range as renting the tractor/backhoe and you will get a better job done.....

Very good question! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Hope this helps...
Dan McCarty

 

[JOR_EL]

Hi Dan, /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

[[[Dont forget you have to dig UNDER that drip line to get the ball out of the ground. That would be hard if not impossible to do with a backhoe.]]]

Moved some 2-3" trunk dia. fir trees by hand. Dug around the drip line with pick and shovel. Dug one side deeper, ...then put a loop of logging cable (a "choker") around the ball at the BOTTOM of the trench, and hooked it to the trailer-hitch on my 4wd pickup. Pulled the cable thru under the ball like a cheese-cutter. So much for getting it loose. (getting it OUT is another problem.)

Now that I have a tractor/backhoe, I plan to try the same idea on some bigger trees. Had about a 50% success rate with these, but I really think the losses were due to inadequate water, ...forgot to check on them regularly! /w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif

HTH someone,

Larry