Tree Tubes Pro's and Con's: A Grower's Perspective

Here's a really interesting blog post on tree tubes from a grower with hand-on experience.

Click here.

Tips for peak growth with Tree Tubes: Prune seedlings to a single stem

One of the most frequently asked questions from first-time tree tube users is:  "Should I prune my seedlings to single stems before applying the tree tubes, or should I gather the lateral branches and lower the tree tubes down over them?"

Unlike most things in forestry where foresters like be give lengthy "there's no wrong way to do it" replies, in this case the answer is absolute and unequivocal:  YOU PRUNE TO A SINGLE STEM BEFORE APPLYING THE TREE TUBE.

This seems counter-intuitive.  Then again, many things pertaining to tree tubes are.  But there are two very good reasons for pruning seedlings to a single stem before placing a tree tube on them:

1) Better tree form = better long term health.  In general, if you bend lateral branches upward to fit into a tree tube, those lateral branches will continue to grow up and out of the tube.  The result is a very acute angle between the lateral branch and the main stem.  The narrower that branch angle a) the weaker that branch connection is and the more prone it will be in the future to breaking under heavy wind and/or snow loads, and b) the more difficult it will be down the road to prune that branch properly.

Generally speaking if you put a tree tube over a single stem you get a single stem growing up through the tube and out the top.  You might get a few very small lateral branches in the tubes, but these tend to remain very small and are easily pruned when the tube is removed.

So simply from the standpoint of long term tree health Best Practice is to always prune seedlings to a single stem before "tree tubing" them.

2) Faster growth!  Fast growth is one of the primary reasons (besides protection from deer browse) that people use tree tubes in the first place, and pruning to a single stem before applying tree tubes flat out results in faster growth.

This is the part that seems counter-intuitive.  You get a nice big seedling from the nursery, complete with 2 or 3 good-sized lateral branches.  You plant the seedling and are just about to apply the tree tube.  You look at those lateral branches and think, "Cripes if I prune these branches I'm leaving 50% of the seedling I paid good money for laying on the ground.  Plus, doesn't it need the leaves on those branches to fuel more growth?"  Both perfectly natural thoughts and valid concerns.  I had the same thoughts and concerns myself, so I did a trial.  In my mind I thought I was trying to balance the better tree form I would get from pruning to a single stem with the faster growth I assumed I'd get by leaving the lateral branches in tact.  To my great surprise - and after 23 years tree tubes still never fail to surprise me - the seedlings I pruned to a single stem before tubing them not only exhibited better form, they also grew faster... A LOT faster!

I believe that there are two reasons for this faster growth, one obvious and one not-so-obvious:  a) All of the seedling's growth energy is channeled into a single stem, and b) removing the lateral branches and their leaves allows for better air flow/exchange in the tree tubes, and allows each leave to absorb more sunlight.

The importance of pruning to a single stem is illustrated perfectly in this video from Tree Protection Supply, a long-time distributor of high quality tree tubes (in fact there are several highly informative videos about Tree Tubes at Tree Protection Supply's You Tube Channel. 

As with so many things with tree tubes over the years, customers have pointed me in the right direction.  One grower I know in Mississippi not only prunes his seedlings to a single stem before applying tree tubes, he picks off all of the lateral buds leaving only the terminal buds.  Who am I to argue with his results?  Take a look:

(Click to enlarge)

This is a hybrid shumard x willow oak.  The acorns were gathered in autumn 2010.  They were not sown in nursery pots until July 2011.  This seedling was planted in autumn, 2011.  It was about 18 inches tall at the time.

This photograph was taken in September 2012 - after one growing season in the ground.  The green tree tube is 4ft tall, and the beige "tubextender" is 2ft tall and was added to keep deer from browsing the tree after emerging from the 4ft tree tube.  From there you can do the math and see how tall this tree is - after getting planted in late autumn 2011 as an 18" seedling - after just one growing season.  Amazing.

A lot more went into achieving that kind of growth (aggressive weed control, supplemental fertilization, etc.) and we'll cover those things in future posts. 

But a major factor in achieving this kind of growth is simply PRUNING SEEDLINGS TO A SINGLE STEM BEFORE APPLYING YOUR TREE TUBES.

Absolutely astounding growth of oaks in tree tubes

This is unbelievable even to me - and I've worked with tree tubes for 23 years. 

This is a hybrid oak - overcup oak x white oak.  It was planted in March, 2011 as an 18 inch seedling.

(Click to enlarge)

 

This photo was taken yesterday, against a darkening Mississippi sky.  That tree is now 11 feet 8 inches tall.  (The tree tube is 4ft tall and the photograph is taken from ground level looking up.)

Let me be a little more clear, because it really is hard to wrap your brain around this:  In just two growing seasons this tree has grown 10 feet 3 inches since being planted as a seedling.

When I take a step back I shouldn't be surprised.  In fact these are the kind of results that I believe will become commonplace in the next decade.  It is the result of several factors:

1) Tree seedling planting stock is much, much better than ever.  Nurseries are selecting seed from superior trees, and are producing healthy, vigorous planting stock (especially stock growing in root-pruning pots) that is ready to "hit the ground running" with little or no transplant shock.

2) Trees - even oak trees - actually, especially oak trees - are inherently capable of remarkable growth.  Reaching that growth potential is simply a matter of removing the obstacles - the stresses - that prevent it from growing as fast as it might.  Those stresses include weed competition, drought, lack of nutrients, and of course animal browse.

3) Tree Tubes make it easy for growers to eliminate most if not all of those stresses:

> They shield tree seedlings from deer browse

> They make it easy to locate tree seedlings amidst the grass and brush, and protect them from weed control treatments that eliminate vegetative competition (thus making more moisture, nutrients and light available to the seedling)

> The shelter tree seedlings from drying winds, and capture and condense transpired moisture, returning it to the soil to be re-absorbed by the seedling.

In subsequent posts we'll be looking at how to achieve peak growth performance like this!

Driving unnecessary cost out of tree tubes

This blog is about the history, development and applications of tree tubes.  But it is also chronicles the evolution of the companies that are trying - as has happened with so many technologies - to drive down the cost of using tree tubes and make them accessible to the largest number of users.

In the previous post I discussed one company's obsession with keeping the final, delivered cost of tree tubes as low as possible to make them affordable for more tree planters.

Here is a great post from another company, Tree Protection Supply, which shares this philosophy, using creative, custom packaging and aggressive shopping of freight services to keep their prices on tree tubes  low.

So much of the price of the things we buy has nothing to do with the cost of raw materials and manufacturing, and everything to do with secondary costs such as transport, overhead, packaging, marketing - not to mention profit margin.

In the case of tree tubes many suppliers have extremely high secondary costs and profit margins.  It is therefore possible for companies that focus on keeping secondary costs to an absolute minimum to sell a BETTER PRODUCT at a LOWER PRICE than tree tube companies selling a product of lesser quality.

Hmmm ... Better product at a lower price.  That sounds to me like the way a technology goes from a niche product to widespread acceptance.  And tree tubes are definitely following that trajectory!

Inside Baseball on Tree Tubes

Here's an illuminating post on the history and behind-the-scenes business of tree tubes, and one company's efforts to get this amazing technology to market at the lowest possible price so as to be of the greatest benefit.

Click here.

Two great video channels to learn about tree tubes

Tree tubes are a "seeing is believing" kind of product... which made it a little difficult back in the olden days to fully explain them to prospective customers via a printed catalog or over the phone.  I always used to catch myself gesturing to someone I was talking to on the phone in a pathetic attempt to explain how fast their trees would grow in tree tubes, only to realize that of course gestures are about as helpful in a phone conversation a they are over the radio... or when using smoke signals.

I used to love landowner field days, because they gave me an opportunity to demonstrate how tree tubes work in person to a small group of interested tree growers.  It was a whole lot better than talking on the phone, and the potluck lunches were always a highlight, but it still wasn't the most efficient way to get the tree tube message out there - driving hundreds of miles to talk to a group of 12 to 24 folks.

These days it's so easy to get that same message out to thousands of people, just for the cost of a few pixels, thanks to You Tube.

Here are two great You Tube Channels that focus on tree planting and the use of tree tubes:

Mossy Oak Nativ Nurseries Seedling and Tree Tubes Channel

Tree Protection Supply Tree Tubes Channel

At both places you'll find a wealth of information from the most knowledgeable guys in the business!

Tree Tube Myths: Does this look like a spindly stem to you?

One of the "knocks" against tree tubes over the years is that, while they unarguably accelerate height growth, they produce trees with thin spindly stems.  To this criticism I have two responses:

1) A six foot tree with a thin stem and a sturdy treeshelter in place to support it until the stem thickens up enough to support itself is a whole lot better than the alternative:  A seedling without a tube that is continually browse by deer to the point where it dies or is stunted at knee height for years.

2) Today's vented tree tubes and flexible PVC stakes have combine to make a myth out of the "spindly stem" critique of tree tubes.  Thin stems are a thing of the distant past.  Take a look:

(Click to enlarge)

This is the trunk of a hybrid oak from Mossy Oak Nativ Nurseries planted in a 4ft Tubex Combitube Plus Tree Tube.  Here's the chronology:

* Planted as 18 inch seedling in March, 2011

* Photo taken on August 2, 2012 - less than two complete growing seasons later!

The tree is now well over 10ft tall.  But most exciting to me is the large caliper of the trunk immediately above the tree tube.  You can see that with today's vented tree tubes and flexible PVC stakes it's not just a matter of producing the same amount of biomass growth and just "stretching" it in height, as might have been the case with early tree tubes.  No, this tree is putting on a HUGE amount of total biomass (especially when you consider that stem diameter is the best "window" into what's going on with root growth below ground).

As with so many discussions of tree tubes it comes down to B.V. (Before Venting) and A.V. (After Venting). Before venting trees were definitely better off with tree tubes than without, but exhibited some "side effects" like thin stems.  After venting tree planters are realizing the full potential of tree tubes and seeing astounding growth, both in terms of height but - more importantly - in terms of stem diameter.

Think of it this way, using a computer analogy:  Unvented, small diameter tubes of the past = MS-DOS.  Today's vented, large diameter tubes combined with flexible PVC stakes = Windows XP.