Article by Paul Jeffreys, Ph.D.,
ArborGen Reforestation Advisor,
Alabama, Mississippi, and Western Tennessee
A few weeks back, I accompanied a former student of mine, now a professional forester, to a planting site on his company land to inspect seedling and planting quality.
As we arrived on the tract that had been site prepared for its new forest, I noticed something that deeply concerned me.
One of the planters had separated himself from the rest of the crew and filled his planting bag for another run. He was down on both knees with his hoedad planting tool firmly secured between them.
He was taking the seedlings from the box and then holding them on both ends. I could see him making an up and down motion with his arms and I instantly knew what was going on. I got out of my truck and headed in his direction. The tree planter immediately started trying to hide his actions, but the pile of cut roots next to him was too much to cover. I caught him prepping his bag of work for easy planting and it was obvious that he did not understand, or care, about the consequences of his actions.
Upon further investigation of the tract, several piles of roots were discovered by the forester and me. It is an age-old problem as old as artificial regeneration itself. To make planting easy, tree planters will cut, chop, bite or chew off roots to make for easy insertion into the planting slit, thereby producing a damaged seedling with disproportionate shoot/root ratio and a significant loss of absorbent root tips.
Remember, your seedlings arrive from our nurseries with the perfect shoot/root ratio – don’t cut the roots!