tree planting auger

[Fuddy1952]

To me it all depends on frequency of use and quantity of trees.
As a kid my Grandfather planted Christmas trees using a Farmall tractor and a single disk harrow, similar to this but larger diameter and mounted in center of tractor.
He made long rows about 10-15 ft. apart. He grew a variety of maybe four type trees.
We kids went along spacing trees maybe every 10 ft., it went pretty fast just flop soil over root ball, the trench held water.

 

[nyone]

How big are the trees your planting? A ford 1210 is only a 16hp machine so not well suited to major earth engaging attachments.

To build a whole other hudraulic system just to plant trees is going to be expensive and fast.

If your just planting 1-2ft trees a normal shovel works well. Your going to have to hand backfill anyway.

 

[rd_macgregor]

I bought a Belltec hydraulic auger with SSQA and flat-face couplers a few years ago. With both 9" and 14" augers, it came to less than $2k (Canadian). There are several other manufacturers of similar units. The auger unit works great. However, I have found only one significant shortcoming of this set-up; in my tractor I can't see exactly where the tip of the auger is hitting the ground. I bought a camera system to correct this problem, but haven't gotten around to installing it yet.
Unless you are very adept at mechanical design and fabrication (including the hydraulic components), I'd suggest going with an out-of-the-box solution instead. Even discounting the value of your time/labor, a pre-made unit might be cheaper than the parts cost of a home-made one.

 

[Diggin It]

I'm still intrigued by the idea of a self contained gasoline powered unit attached to the side of the FEL bucket if one could adapt the controls to be used from the seat. I'm not sure about what kind of torque forces would be involved though.

 

[countrybumpkin]

^^ Looks interesting but I can't find any pricing on it. Why list something for sale only to say 'Call for Price'?

Then again, I always have trouble figuring out where your post ends and the advertising begins.

They run about $2000 give or take a little.

 

[tree grower]

I like your motto Life is short. Play with tractors! That should be on a tee shirt

 

[D2Cat]

The implement you're needing will depend on the size of trees you are planting. When I planted trees for a Christmas tree farm they came in bundles of 25 or 50 trees. The bundle was about 3" in diameter and the trees were about 12" tall.

The county had a Christmas tree planter anyone could borrow. It could be pulled by any small tractor. I used a B8200. It was a 3pt hitch with a couple of angles iron brackets coming back to a metal tractor seat for the "planter". A "V" wedge was about 12" deep with an opening of about 4" in the back and it set under the 3pt arms. The wedge opened the ground the tree was placed in the slot. Under the seat were two square edged wheel borrow wheel set at an angle. The weight of the planter person over the wheels packed the ground back down around the tree. Above the wedge was a platform to hold the bundles of trees.

You could plant trees at a fast rate, and the survival rate was nearly 100%.

 

[Ford850]

I'm just going to add the OP's description of how he intends to use this auger: "This is for inter-planting in rows of Christmas trees." Most of the replies are thinking he's laying out new rows of trees on open ground. What he's doing (I think) is interplanting new seedlings in bare spots of existing rows of trees, where a tree has been harvested.

 

[tree grower]

As noted by Ford850 this is for interplanting, not for planting new rows. Per D2CAT, this little Ford could not handle a tree planter. After 35 yrs of planting by hand, my old social security joints would like some relief from wielding the shovel. By hydraulically digging a hole about the size of a 2-liter soda bottle, I can follow with the bare-root trees, backfilling with nice loose soil. A major gap in my designer brain regards the physics of hydraulic motors. My tractor's hydraulic pump puts out 4.3 GPM @ 1850 psi @ 2700 RPM. Most hydraulic motors require a much greater volume, and I don't like to run continuously at much over 2000 rpm. At this point I need to study my 'Hydraulics for Dummies' before firing up the welder.

 

[Ford850]

That German rig is a beauty.