Blue spruce trees- ok or problems?

[Wisctimber]

Hi, I usually post on the other spectrum of this website, chainsawing, but today I have a question about some blue spruce trees I recently planted.

Background:
Back on March 30, 2012 I planted 250 small blue spruce trees on our property. These were 2-3 ft transplants that came from the Michigan zone (Im in Wisconsin). The trees were planted using the trench spade method, spaced 12 feet apart, with 12 foot rows (double and triple rows). The area gets a lot of sunlight as its an old alfalfa field and these trees are along the road property boundary, on a slightly sloping hill. The soil is clay with sand and black dirt mix. For the first 3-4 weeks I watered them weekly. The past two weeks I havent done any watering because we have had quite a bit of regular rainfall, almost every other day. Ive been mowing around the trees best I can, but because theyre so small, theres probably a good 6-12 inches of weeds circling the tree at the base. The other farmer neighbors have planted similiar types of trees (pines and spruce) across the street. They simply planted and left them go (no watering or mowing for weeds.) We have a heavy deer population in the area.

Last night I walked around and looked at the trees. Approx 20% of the trees are turning brown at the bottom and dropping their needles at the bottom going up. Im worried that theyre starting to die.

Q:
-Is this normal for a transplant tree?
-Is it stress, too much water, or not enough water?
-Is there anything I should or shouldn't be doing?
-Am I worrying over nothing?

I would appreciate any help you can provide as Id rather be proactive now vs find out later on I should have been doing something different and could have saved them.

Thanks!

 

[Wisctimber]

Some additional information... I dug up 3 trees from different areas, same problem, and examined the roots. They all were moist, not dried out, and not wet. The area they were in was moist, not puddling or dry and cracked. I'll see if I can post some pics.. but Im starting to think stress??

 

[Wisctimber]

Heres a couple of pics of the trees, and the way they are starting to look... browning bottom needles first, then the bottom needles drop off, leaving bare branches that look dead. Still trying to determine if theyre dieing, in shock, etc...

 

[Wisctimber]

Nobody??... Nobody has a clue on this forum?... Hello... ? Buehler? Buehler?.....

 

[ddhlakebound]

Were these bare root?

Please explain the "trench spade" digging method. If it's what I'm picturing, you may have created a glazed/sealed "V" shaped channel that the roots would have difficulty getting through, and water would have difficulty draining out of.

 

[Wisctimber]

Yes, these were bare root transplants.

The trench method is this:

-use a trench spade (deep 18 inches-flat)
-push it in the ground deep, then rock it back and forth, creating an open area for the small tree.
-put the small tree into the created trench.
-be sure to tuck all the bare roots inside the long trench, roots should be pointed down.
-fill the hole with water.
-let the water drain, then push the sides back together while holding the tree upright and straight.
...repeat steps for all 250 trees...

The bottom of the created opening is just the regular dirt, and all of them drained before I pushed dirt back together, so they were draining properly. I dug up a couple of trees that were exhibiting problems and examined the roots. The roots were moist, but not flooded (not saturated as if sitting in a pool), and they werent dried up and cracking.

I keep thinking its stress related as we had one "charlie brown xmas tree" looking tree a week after we planted it, and that tree is making a comeback. So Im wondering if some of these are simply showing signs of stress from the transplant. On different ones Im seeing new buds appearing, which I take as a good sign. its the ones that havent budded, are turning brown and losing needles from the ground-up that Im watching.

 

[Jace]

Roots need to go out, not "stuffed" down.
Hole depth should not have been more than the depth of root from trunk flare (where it meets and begins roots) to the lowest part of center root area, which isnt anywhere near 18"(If I understand that spade method depth accurately). Probly would be more like about 8-10" deep +/-. (Im not sure tree size).
There is grass and weeds all around the base of the trees in the photos, and not mulch, so the tree is fighting against the weeds for moisture and nutrients, that doent help things either....

Im not familiar with the "spade technique". But IMO, it is working against what the tree roots are suppose to do....(go out, not down....and not deep either.) And if the roots try to grow out like they are suppose to, then they are against a wall of somewhat compacted dirt all the way around, whereas it should have been broken up allowing for much easier penetration for out growing roots.
I think that in using the "spade technique", one would be much better off to atleast break up the ground out, and lay the roots pointing out.
Just my opinion....

 

[Wisctimber]

These are 2-3ft tall transplants and their roots are quite a bit longer then 8 inches. The length of the roots of these trees was anywhere from about 16-24 inches on average. Where the roots exceeded 18 inches, we trimmed them accordingly before placing them down into the open area. As far as where the roots go, I kept reading that the roots need to continue to go down vs out so that they can grow deeper vs shallow for their root system.

The grass and weeds are something we're trying to work on right now. We've been using a riding mower around the trees, but we're not getting close enough to the trunk. We were contemplating using a hand mower and then putting down some mulch. We dont want to use a weed trimmer around the base for fear of hitting the small trunks. We were also thinking of using weed killer, but again, don't want to get too close to the trunks and have that affect the tree. If anyone has ideas, we'll listen as far as weed control is concerned. If it was just a handful of trees, we'd be hand clipping weekly, but with 250 trees, the task gets a bit more daunting. So we're looking for larger scale, mass ideas...

 

[tanker78]

As far as weed control goes, look into something that uses a cloth wiper to dispense herbicide next to your trees. Here is an example.

Vogels Wick Weeders Hand Models

As far as your trees dying, I can't really help, except to say that bare root transplants have always been tough for me.