Mossy Oak Tree Tube Video: Tree tubes versus wire mesh cages

Our friends at Mossy Oak Tree Tubes sent this great video comparing the benefits and performance of wire mesh cages versus Wilson Tree Tubes:

http://www.youtube.com/user/NativNurseries?feature=mhee#p/u/10/0XozDCEfPb4

While you're visiting Mossy Oak's Nativ Nurseries web site be sure to check out their awesome hybrid oaks and other wildlife trees!

Happy oak in a Wilson Tree Tube

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Last week at this time this little bur oak seedling was happy to be safe inside this Tree Tube, rather than exposed to 30 to 40mph wind gusts that would have dried it out.

Today the seedling is just as happy not to be exposed to a blistering sun - it's over 90 degrees here in Minnesota. 

I'll be photographing this bur oak every Monday, to put together a time lapse sequence as the growing season goes on.  This is a really fun thing to do, in part because it's always fun to see how fast your trees are growing in their tree tubes (some guys supercharge their cars to see how fast they can go, I supercharge my trees to see how fast they'll grow!), and in part because making a weekly visit to your trees really makes you appreciate how stressful growing conditions are for unsheltered trees, and how much tree tubes function to reduce stress.

Stress is to tree growth what friction is to motion.  Low stress = Fast growth!

Tree Tubes spell relief from wind & moisture stress

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Looking at this photo you can practically hear the little bur oak seedling sighing, "Ahhhh."  I took this photo yesterday.  Nice sunny day, but the wind was howling with gusts up to 35mph and more.

 

An un-tubed bur oak seedling - or any seedling - would have been under severe moisture stress as the wind continually stripped away the moist envelope of air surrounding the leaves. Not this guy.  All he "felt" was the gentle swaying of the tree tube thanks to its PVC tree tube stake.  No wind.  No stress.  Just perfect conditions for growth. 

Why do trees grow so much faster in tree tubes?  Two reasons (well it's a lot more than two reasons, but we'll concentrate on two for today).  One a windy day like yesterday the leaves on un-tubed trees close their stomata - the pores through which they exchange gases and transpire moisture.  This is a good strategy for conserving limited moisture resources, but it's a bad strategy for photosynthesis, which slows dramatically.  In other words, it's a survival strategy, not a growth strategy.  By contrast the leaves of a seedling in a tree tube keep their stomata open and photosynthesis continues full bore.

Since the leaves of the seedling in a tree tube are not exposed to stressful, windy conditions they can optimize their morphology and structure for growth:  High surface to weight ratio to optimize light absorption and gas exchange, bright glossy surface.  The leaves of a seedling outside a tree tube are smaller, thicker, darker and duller.  They are survival leaves, not growth leaves.

To put it another way (and to use a Memorial Weekend analogy), the leaves in a tree tube are an Indy car, while the leaves of an un-tubed seedling are a 1974 Pinto.

Tree Tube Talk: Call Me Before You Plant Trees!

This past Saturday I was invited to give a talk about Tree Tubes at a Minnesota Forestry Association Field Day (which turned into more of an inside day, thanks to torrential downpours).  I have no idea how many talks I have given about tree tubes over the course of 22 years; it's a lot, but I never, ever get tired of it.  Yes, hopefully a result of my talks is that I sell a few tree tubes.  But that's not why I enjoy giving these talks so much.

First of all, when speaking to groups of landowners interested in forestry and tree planting I invariably meet fascinating people - the people who become my heroes for the amazing work they are doing and the dedication with which they tend their little patches of heaven.

Second of all, I always learn something from the folks I'm supposed to be teaching.  (It's interesting how these first two items have a lot more to do with listening than with speaking - it's true what they say; you can't learn anything new when your mouth is moving!)  Non-industrial private landowners own most of our forest land and they are the ones on the front line of the battle to regenerate and improve our forests.  They have been through the wars and have the battle scars - and knowledge - to show for it.

Finally - and here's where the teaching comes in - my talks almost always turn out to be about a lot more than tree tubes.  They are about successful forest regeneration in general.  One thing I have noticed over the years is that landowners often are not told the truth about tree planting by forestry and conservation professionals.  It's not that these professional lie, it's that they just don't want to tell landowners how difficult it is - and how much work it takes - to successfully grow trees.  I think there is an element of denial at work here, a hearkening to the old days before 70 deer per square mile when you could plant seedlings, walk away and expect adequate survival.  In part I think there's a fear that if landowners realize how much work it takes, they will choose not to do it.

So instead what happens is that landowners plant a bunch of trees with visions of passing a new forest down to their grandchildren, but become disillusioned when their trees get eaten by deer, cooked by drought and swarmed under with weeds and grass they can't possibly spray or mow fast enough.

Sadly, at this point many landowners give up.  Some - the dedicated few - the ones I meet at forestry field days - keep trying, and keep seeking new solutions.  Eventually this search leads them to me, and to tree tubes.  Luckily tree tubes are easier to find these days thanks to the internet.

Once they start using tree tubes,

1) They can't believe - and are in many cases angry - that no one ever told them about tree tubes before.

2) They fully understand that tree tubes reduce the cost of tree planting as compared to everything else they would need to do in order to be successful (and in many cases are in fact the only way they can be successful).

3) They tell me, "I wish I had known about this the first time I planted - it would have saved me years of wasted effort."

That's my challenge.  To spread to word more effectively, to teach people about tree tubes before they waste years of hard work and money, and before they give up altogether.

That's why I enjoy giving these talks so much.

Thank you to the Minnesota Forestry Association for inviting me, and thanks to so many dedicated members who braved inclement weather to come to the field day.  It's not always a bad thing when rain forces a field day inside and gets landowners together over coffee and donuts to meet, share information, and learn new tricks.

Tree Tubes: The Importance of Pruning to a Single Stem

You have planted your seedling, pounded in your tree tube stakes and you're about to lower your tree tube over the seedling.  You notice the seedling has some beautiful little lateral branches and you realize that you are faced with a decision:  Gather and bunch up those laterals, or prune the seedling to a single stem.

I call this the tree tube moment of truth.  What do you do?  You grit your teeth.  You wince.  You suck in your breath.  And you prune the seedling to a single stem.

I know it's hard to do.  I know it is counter intuitive.  Not only did you pay good money for the seedling (so you don't want to leave its branches laying on the ground), you also know those branches will produce leaves that will fuel faster growth... right?

Wrong.  I know that answer to this because I have done it both ways.  When you prune to a single stem not only will you get a tree with better form (no narrow branch angles cause by cramming lateral branches into the confined space), you will get faster growth!  That is because when you prune to single stems before applying your tree tubes each leaf will be exposed to more sunlight, and more air - especially carbon dioxide - will circulate in the tree tube to fuel more growth.

Several times I - or one of my customers - have done side by side tests: Same species, same site, some pruned to a single stem and some left unpruned.  The pruned trees always perform better.

So when confronted with "the moment of truth" and facing the decision "to prune or not to prune," hopefully it will make it easier to do the right thing - pruning to a single stem - now that you know that your trees will not only have better form, they will also grow faster.

Think of it this way:  When you buy and plant a seedling what you are really buying is a root system.  Tree tubes are the fastest, surest way to turn that root system into a healthy, established tree.  Pruning to a single stem accelerates the process of turning that root system into a tree.

Tree Tubes: There's no "wrong time" to install a tree tube!

People often ask me: When is the best time to install my tree tubes?

My answer:  Today!  (The second best time:  Tomorrow.)

Seriously, there's no bad time or wrong time to install your tree tubes.  They can be installed when seedlings are still dormant, or they can be installed when your seedling are in full leaf.

If you install them later in the summer after the seedlings have already pushed new growth you might not see a dramatic increase in growth from using the tree tubes until next year... but that's OK - at least your trees will be safe from the deer!

Tree Tubes Withstand Flooding

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A customer in Mississippi sent this photo after recent high winds and (obviously) torrential rains.

Even after all that, his Tubex Tree Tubes with PVC Tree Tube Stakes are still standing strong!

Tree Tubes: Giving Nature a helping hand

If you end up with some extra tree tubes after you're done protecting your newly planted seedlings, chestnuts and acorns, here are a couple of ways you can put those tree tubes to use:

1. Use tree tubes on naturally regenerated seedlings (volunteers) that you want to favor and protect

2. Use tree tubes on stump sprouts (suckers) that grow after an older tree dies or is harvested

Obviously growing from seed or re-sprouting from an existing root system are two ways trees have been reproducing since the dawn of time.  But keep in mind that only a tiny percentage of those naturally regenerated trees ever survived to reach maturity - and today's volunteer seedlings or sprouts face more dangers in the form of record high deer populations and dozens of invasive weed species than ever before.  Covering them with Tree Tubes not only shields them from deer browse, it makes it easier for you to locate those special young trees and give them some weed & brush control.

So you don't always have to plant a tree to grow a tree.  Sometimes you can simply take what Mother Nature starts and give it a helping hand.

Projects Of The Week

Whew, it was a whirlwind of a week* with a bunch of new tree planting projects getting off to a successful start.  The pace of orders and shipments turns this time of year into a bit of a blur, so I apologize if I'm forgetting some.

> A grower in PA bought a bunch of 24" tree tubes (yes, we have those - pls call for a quote!) to use on direct seeded American chestnuts and other trees.  And yes, she did get our special discount available to anyone using our Tree Tubes on American chestnut trees to help restore this magnificent species.

> Hazelnut bushes in Georgia - which will benefit from our Vented Tree Tube design

> Genetically select bur oaks in Texas

> Grapevines in Minnesota, Iowa and Pennsylvania

> Northern red oak and black walnut in Michigan

> Riparian buffer CREP project in Virginia

> Willows and cottonwoods in a riparian buffer CREP project in eastern Oregon

As always, thanks to all of our customers for allowing me and Wilson Forestry Supply to play at least a small part in the success of your projects.  Our success is measured by the success, growth and health of your trees, and how quickly they fulfill your plans.

* Speaking of whirlwinds, check out our Tree Tube News section to read how our Tubex Combitube Treeshelters and PVC Tree Tube Stakes withstood sustained 50mph winds in the South.

Tree Tubes Promote Stem Thickness - In Time

A customer asked a very good and well informed question this morning (that's not surprising - our customers are the smartest and best informed tree planters out there!):  She had read that trees need to shake and sway in the wind in order to add stem thickness/caliper, and worried that this would not happen in tree tubes. 

I gave a three part answer, which this poor customer probably regarded as "20 minutes of her life she'll her life she'll never get back," even though she was kind enough to listen and sound appreciative.  To save you the same 20 minute discussion, here's the Reader's Digest condensed version:

1) It's true that while a seedling is growing up through a tree tube and out the top it does not sway or flex as much as an un-tubed tree, and has a thinner stem relative to its height than the un-tubed tree.  (On the plus side, the tree is the tree tube is actually alive after the first few years, whereas odds are increasingly against the same being said for the un-tubed tree, due to deer browse and drought.)

2) This is not as true for the new vented Tubex Combitube Tree Tubes we offer here at Wilson Forestry Supply, especially when that vented tree tube is coupled with a PVC stake.  Vented tubes have been shown to promote better stem diameter growth than the old, unvented treeshelters used years ago.  And using a PVC stake allows the tree tube - and therefore the tree inside - to sway in the wind, triggering the same growth responses you see in an un-tubed tree: increased stem caliper and taper.

3) Even with today's better tree tubes and with PVC stakes, at the point in time the tree emerges from the tree tube it will have a thinner stem relative to its height than would an un-tubed tree.  That's OK!  That's why our tree tubes are designed to last 5+ years, so that after the tree emerges the tube can continue to support the trunk.  Once the emergent tree starts swaying in the wind you will see that it quickly adds stem taper and thickness.

Tree Tubes on Swamp White Oak

Sold some Wilson Tree Tubes to a customer in Wisconsin yesterday.  There's nothing surprising in that - we sell A LOT of tree tubes to tree planters in Wisconsin (after all, the annual deer harvest by hunters in Wisconsin is greater than the number of whitetail deer that existed in the USA in 1900, and it still doesn't reduce the size of the herd in Wisc!).

What was exciting about this conversation was that the customer plans to use his treeshelters on swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor (also known as bicolor oak in the nursery trade, perhaps out of fear the the presence of the word "swamp" in it name will make it less appealing to landscapers and homeowners).

Swamp white oak is a fantastic tree, but is underrated and under planted.  It grows much faster than most people associate with oaks (in fact ALL oaks grow much faster than people think!), and tolerates poorly drained bottomland sites.  Poorly drained sites are typically low in oxygen, since water is taking up much of the pore space in the soil.  Similar conditions can be found in boulevard tree planting sites where soil compaction creates low oxygen conditions, making swamp white oak an excellent choice as a street tree... and unlike many of the Norway maples and other trees planted along out streets, swamp white oak is tremendously long lived.

So Thank You to our new customer in Wisconsin for planting swamp white oaks on his property, and thank you for protecting them with our tree shelter tubes to ensure their success.  The deer will thank you for two hundred years to come!

Treeshelters for Paulownia

I found this great article on starting paulownia (Paulownina tomentosa) seedlings in Tubex Tree Shelters.

Paulownia, as many know, is an incredibly fast growing tree (as in 10-12 feet in 4 months!) that produces wood valued for a wide range of products.

If you have an interest in growing paulownia, I highly recommend joining the American Paulownia Association.  The organization is a great resource to learn about sources of seed and planting stock, best growing practices, and to share camaraderie with other growers.

Tree Tubes In Action - Weekly Wrap Up

One of the things I like to do during planting season is to look back on the week just past and recap the various projects folks bought our tree tubes for:

American chestnut seedlings in Maryland

Hazelnut and red alders in Oregon, along with with Douglas fir, cypress and ponderosa pine

Hybrid oak trees in MI, OH, MS, VA, TN, LA and KS

Bur oak, burgambel oak, dwarf chinkapin oak, chokecherry, chokeberry, buffalo berry in SD - lucky deer!

Gobbler sawtooth oaks in AL

Fruit trees in UT

American chestnut, black walnut, butternut, black cherry and northern red oak in MN

That's just a small sample.  There have been too many orders and shipments this week for me to track them all, or to know for sure what trees folks are using their tree tubes on.

But as usual, the best part of my job is talking with landowners and helping them achieve their management goals - not simply by pushing treeshelters but by discussing planting layout, species selection, letting them know about all of the great nurseries out there offering unique planting stock, and helping them skip about 3 years of trial and error by sharing the experiences of other landowners I have been privileged to work with.

Thanks to all of our customers for another great week.  And thanks for all of your hard work in re-treeing our land.

Five Foot Tree Tubes Are Here... But Going Fast!

A new shipment of 5ft Tree Tubes has arrived... but it won't last long!  In fact most were already sold before they ever arrived.

I haven't even had time to put them up on our web site!  To reserve your 5ft tree tubes today, please contact Chris Siems for pricing and shipping.  You won't find a better deal on the best treeshelter on the market:  The Tubex Combitube Treeshelter.

Cost of Tree Tubes: Compared to What?

This past Sunday's Dilbert comic strip was very funny, and it reminded me of conversations I used to have with foresters about the cost of tree tubes. 

The pointy haired boss (who hasn't had one of those?) says, "I can't sign off on this plan. It's too expensive."  To which Dilbert's colleague asks him, "You heard me say that doing nothing will end up costing twice as much, right?"  To which the boss says, "Yes."

The colleague continues, "And you understand that this is your only alternative?"  At this point the boss leaves and asks Dilbert to explain things to his colleague. 

Dilbert says: "My boss doesn't understand that costs should be compared to alternatives."

Foresters used to routinely tell me that treeshelters were too expensive.  The question they never answers was, "Compared to what?"  There are really only two things to which you can legitimately compare the cost of tree tubes.

First, you can compare the cost of tree tubes to simply buying trees and planting them.  In other words, you can compare to failure - and that's mostly what foresters were comparing to.  But the cost of failure is a lot higher than foresters used to account for.  It's not just the cost of seedlings and planting - and then doing it over and over again.  It's the cost of repeated site prep. It's the lost time - time that you could have sent doing something else, and the added time it will take to reach your planting goal.  Failure definitely costs a lot more than tree tubes.

Second, you can consider everything you would have to do to have a successful tree planting project without tree tubes, and then compare the cost of tree tubes to that.  Without tree tubes,

1)  You'd have to provide another form of browse protection - wire cages, fencing, or repeated treatments with deer repellent

2) Your trees would still be vulnerable to moisture stress and seasonal droughts, either requiring watering or significant seedling mortality/replacement

3) Weed control takes ten times longer without tree tubes - with most of that added time being simply finding your trees amidst the grass and brush, and the other time spent protecting the seedlings from herbicide spray while you treat the grass.  The added time for weed control combined with the fact that most landowners have limited time to devote to maintaining their planting means that weed control is more likely not to get done without tree tubes... resulting in lower survival rates, more replanting, more lost time, etc.

I'm probably "preaching to the choir" here.  In that last 5 years I have seen a major shift in thinking.  I honestly can't remember the last time someone told me that tree tubes were too expensive.  So many more landowners just "get it" and understand that compared to what you'd have to do to grow trees without tree tubes, the tree tubes are a bargain.  And as for failure... for today's landowner failure is simply not an option.

This Dilbert comic tickled me because it took me back to the "bad old days" when hardwood planting failure was the rule rather than the exception, and perfectly encapsulated the discussions I had all too many times.

Stretching Your Tree Planting Dollar - Part 1

We're not just in the business of selling Tree Tubes.  We are in the business of making your planting project a success.  Tree Tubes are just one tool for increasing your success rate - with less work and less frustration.

Part of "success" means "within your budget."  Everyone has a budget, and every tree planter wants to establish as many trees as possible, as quickly as possible, within that budget.

So what happens when you want to plant more trees than you can afford to use buy tree tubes for?  This was exactly the situation for a landowner I have been working with over the past 2 weeks.  Here is how we approached the problem.

1) First we asked: Which tree species are most likely to get browsed by deer and rabbits?  Here we called upon the expertise of local forestry and Soil & Water Conservation District staff for guidance.

2) Where are trees most likely to get browsed?  Portions of the new planting are closer to existing woods, or to a creek - both are favorite haunts for deer and the heaviest browse is most likely to take place adjacent to them.

3) Which trees, if browsed, would "bounce back" and keep growing - perhaps not thriving but at least surviving?  These would be the faster growing trees with indeterminate growth habits that allow them to keep flushing growth all summer.

4) Next we asked: 4ft tubes or 5ft tree tubes?  It was a question of protecting more trees with 4ft tree tubes, or fewer trees with 5ft tubes.  There's no "right" answer to this.  Using 4ft tubes means fewer trees will get browsed initially, but more will get browsed upon emerging from the tree tubes, and these might need to be treated with deer repellent in order to punch through the browse line once and for all.

In the case of this particular landowner, we developed the following plan:

a) 5ft tubes on all the oak trees, since he paid more for specialty hybrid oaks, and they are the least able to bounce back from getting browsed of the species he is planting - plus the goal is getting "fast mast" for wildlife, so every year lost to deer browse makes that wait even longer.

b) 4ft tubes on all the trees within a given distance of the woods and creek draw.

c) 4ft tubes on the species deemed most susceptible to deer browse throughout the rest of the planting.

The next phase of the project is to watch and monitor.  Yes, some trees will get browse by deer, but:

1) Remember, these are the species most likely to bounce back from deer browse.  They might not thrive, they might be kept clipped to ankle height by deer and rabbit, but they won't die.  And as long as you have a living root system, you have a tree.

2) If/when deer browse occurs, un-tubed trees can be treated with deer repellent.

3) After a year or two if the deer are keeping the un-tubed trees mowed off, the landowner can then protect them with tree tubes, knowing that once protected those trees will draw on that well-established root system and literally scream out of the top of those tree tubes.

This plan - focusing the use of tree tubes on the species and in the locations where they are most needed, and then possibly coming back and protecting the trees if necessary and as funds allow - gives the best chance for success given ambitious planting plans and a limited budget.

Working with landowners to help them achieve their tree planting goals is why I love my job so much!  If you have any questions about how best to utilize tree tubes to make your project the success you envision, please contact us. 

Shrub Prescription: First grow past the deer,then branch out

Many landowners interested in enhancing wildlife habitat for deer, wild turkey, pheasants and other species are planting small, fruit-bearing trees and shrubs like American plum, Nanking cherry, chokecherry, chokeberry (Aronia berry), golden current, buffalo berry and others.

This is another example of how our understand of how best to use tree tube technology has advanced in the past 22 years.

The old - and generally ineffective - recommendation in the early days was to use 2ft or 3ft tree tubes on these shrubby species.  The thinking was that the shorter tree tubes would provide initial browse protection, but then would allow the plants to begin branching out at 2 or 3ft. 

The problem with this approach was immediately apparent.  Deer like to eat these species as much as - and probably even more than - tree species like oak and black walnut.  So every time a shrub would emerge from one of these short tree tubes the deer would nip it off.  Rather than a protective device the tree tube functioned more like an ice cream cone for deer!

Trial and error has shown us a more effective approach:

1) Use 4ft or 5ft Tree Tubes to grow the terminal leaders past the browse line.  Yes, you get a "funny looking" shrub for a while, tall and thin, but a funny looking shrub is a lot better than a "dead shrub" or a 2ft tall "ice cream cone."

The good news is that most of these fruit-bearing shrubs or small thicket-forming trees grow like crazy in tree tubes.  Even if you're planting little seedlings don't be surprised if some emerge from the tubes in the first summer!

2) Keep the tree tube in place for another 2-3 seasons, both to support the stem while it thickens up, and to protect from antler rubbing by deer and bark gnawing by rodents.

3) Remove the tubes after 4 seasons or so, to allow the plants to spread, branch and sucker.  Pruning terminal leaders at that time will encourage more lateral branching. After 5 years or so you will have fully established and well branched shrubs.

It's a different way to grow a shrub, but today's record deer numbers force us to do things a little differently; namely first get past the browse line and then branch out!

Thanks for reading, and if you have questions about this or any other aspect of tree tube use, please contact us!

Wilson Tree Tubes For American Chestnut

Many people know the story of the American chestnut tree, but sadly many more people don't.  It is one part tragedy, one part farce, ten parts dedication and hopefully, ultimately, 100 parts triumph.

Chestnut blight is a fungal disease that was accidentally introduced to the USA from Asia in about 1900.  Several species of Asian chestnuts had co-evolved with the blight fungus, and were resistant.  The American chestnut - a towering, majestic tree that dominated the forests of Appalachia and much of the eastern USA - had virtually no inherent resistance.  Within 50 years more than 3 billion American chestnut trees were dead.  (We'll never know the degree to which the American chestnut population might have had some innate resistance to chestnut blight; as the disease ripped through the eastern hardwood forest landowners were instructed by foresters to cut down all of their chestnut trees, on the assumption that they were all doomed, to salvage the lumber value.  The fact that a small number of American chestnut trees did survive the blight, and the fact that in large populations a certain number of individuals almost always survive even the worst epidemics, leads us to believe that there would have been thousands of survivors that could have formed the basis of a breeding program to restore a pure American chestnut to the woods.  Such an effort is underway thanks to an incredibly dedicated group of folks, but still we wonder what might have been if those chestnuts had been left standing to determine which could withstand the blight.)

The American Chestnut Foundation was founded by, among others, four brilliant men with - I'm proud to say - Minnesota connections:  Charles Burnham, Philip Rutter, David French and Donald Willeke.  The plight of the American chestnut was thought by most to be hopeless.  These men had other ideas, and under Burnham's guidance initiated a bold and far-reaching plan:  Adapt the precepts of the traditional "back cross" breeding done in other fields of agriculture to the American chestnut.

In other words, cross-breed the American chestnut with blight resistance Asian chestnuts, and then continue to back-cross the most blight resistant of these offspring with American chestnuts.  The goal, of course, is to produce trees that gain the disease resistance genes of the Asian chestnuts, while maintaining and exhibiting the physical characteristics of the might American chestnut.

That process is several generations down the road, and the results are incredibly exciting and promising.  I stand in bewildered awe of the dedication of the American Chestnut Foundation and its head plant breeder/farm manager Fred Hebbard.

At the same time there are other ways to restore the American chestnut.  The aforementioned American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation, whose goal is to breed a blight-resistant tree that is 100% American chestnut in its genetics by working with the few chestnuts that survived the onslaught, the dedicated folks who are working with hypovirulent strains of the fungus in hopes of stopping the blight in its tracks as happened in Europe, and the amazing people who are applying genetic engineering to create chestnut trees capable of fighting off the fungus.

I salute you all.

And here at Wilson Forestry Supply we hope, at least in our own small way, to help in any way we can.  Our Tubex Combitube Tree Tube is ideally suited for use on American chestnut seedlings or direct seeded chestnuts.  Large diameter vented tree tubes have proven to be the best choice for American chestnuts.

If you are planting American chestnut trees this spring, give us a call.  We offer special discount pricing to all of the dedicated folks working to restore the American chestnut to its rightful place in our eastern forests.

Nurseries On Board

Many of my posts have been about how there has been a sea change in the acceptance of tree tubes over the past few years; how they are standard operating procedure for successful tree planting.  One way this has become evident is in the number of high quality tree seedling nurseries that offer - and highly recommend - tree tubes to their customers.

That's a change from the past.  When tree tubes were first introduced to the USA in the late 1980's nurseries were generally slow to embrace the technology.  There were several reasons for this.  One reason was that, for a nursery, offering treeshelters to its customers meant openly discussing the "elephant in the room" that everyone knew was there but no one want to discuss:  The high level of deer browse, and the likelihood that the seedlings customers planted would get browsed off.  It really wasn't a matter of nurseries thinking that deer browse would mean that customers would keep buying more trees to replace those that were eaten; all nurseries want their customers to be successful.  It was more a matter of nurseries worrying that openly discussing the threat of deer browse and recommending tree tubes as the solution would 1) discourage people from planting trees in the first place, and 2) would drive the cost of tree planting past what people were willing to spend.

Fast forward to 2011 and many things have changed:

1)  The population density - and therefore the severity of deer browse - has done nothing but get worse.  The elephant in the room has become the blue whale in the room!

2)  There is now a much more widespread understanding - on the part of foresters, county conservation districts, and private landowners - that simply planting trees and walking away is a recipe for failure.  When you compare the cost of tree tubes to just planting trees, they seem like an expensive added cost.  When you compare the cost of tree tubes to what you would have to do without them to have a successful project, then you realize that tree tubes actually save you money over the long haul.

3)  Today's tree nurseries are producing planting stock that is light years better than the seedlings that were grown 20 years ago.  New root pruning pots and other advancements mean that the seedlings you get from many of today's nurseries are supercharged for optimal growth.  The nurseries have more invested in producing these great seedlings, and the thought of sending them out unprotected to the field to be exposed to the ravages of deer browse and doubt is unacceptable.  And the customers who purchase them, wisely making the decision to spend a little more on top-notch planting stock with known superior genetics, also wisely make the decision to protect those seedlings with tree tubes.

Two of the very best nurseries producing seedlings for enhancing wildlife habitat have partnered with Wilson Forestry Supply to offer Tubex Combitube Tree Tubes:  Mossy Oak's Nativ Nurseries of West Point, MS and The Wildlife Group of Tuskegee, AL. 

The test of how strongly these great nurseries feel about our tree tubes?  1) When they plant trees on their own properties they never do so without our tree tubes.  2) The both tell their customers:  If you have a certain budget for your project it's better to reduce the number of trees you plant and cover them with tree tubes.  3) Both will tell people in no uncertain terms:  If you plant trees without tree tubes with today's deer densities and invasive weeds and grasses you are wasting your time (which means you are also wasting the blood, sweat and tears they put into raising those trees).

It's an exciting time.  After years and years spent trying to convince folks to use tree tubes, that argument has been won.  Now the only question is:  Which tree tube?  And when you're the US source of Tubex Combitube Treeshelters, you also feel very good about the answer to that question as well!

The Right Stake For The Job

It's an old adage among long-time tree tube users:  Even the best tube (which is, in our humble opinion, the Tubex Combitube Treeshelter) is only as good as the stake that holds it up.

And after years of experimenting with different stakes we have finally found the perfect tree tube stake:  1/2" PVC.  Here's why:

1. Can be driven into any soil (although in tough soils you might need to use a 1" diameter rigid pvc "driving collar" to keep the 1/2" pvc stake from vibrating while driving it - you can cut the driving collar to the perfect length for driving the tree tube stake.

2. Won't rot - stake failure, even with generally decay resistant types of wood - is the number 1 reason for tree tube failure.  PVC stakes will last long enough to get the job done, and can be reused time and time again.

3. Light weight for transporting and shipping

4. Flexible but resilient - every fall you get some bucks rubbing their antlers against tree tubes.  Wooden or bamboo stakes can break off at the ground line with too much pressure and pushing.  PVC stakes flex to absorb the blow, and spring back to vertical.

5. Better tree growth - PVC stakes flex and sway in the wind, duplicating the motion trees would experience if grown in the open (but without the moisture stress and danger of getting eaten!).  That swaying motion "tells" the tree to thicken its stem, so trees grown in tubes with pvc stakes have thicker stems when they emerge from the tubes, and take less time to become self supporting.