WHEN & HOW ARE KEY COMPONENTS

Planting citrus trees seems like such a basicconcept, but it is more complicated than itlooks. If planting is done improperly, it candamage a citrus grower’s tree investment.

Not only do growers need to know the“how” of tree planting, but they also need tounderstand the “when.” This is a key compo-nent to develop citrus property successfully.

CITRUS INDUSTRY VOL. 3 STATES:

“In California and Arizona, most citrustrees are planted between late February andMay, after the danger of severe frost has passedand before the onset of high summer tempera-tures. Trees planted during this period becomewell established through the long growing sea-son and are better able to withstand the lowtemperatures the following winter. Trees plant-ed in summer are subjected to greater shockfrom high temperatures and often fail to startproperly…Trees that are dug for plantingwhile in an active growth flush do not resumegrowth after planting as well as those trees dugjust before a growth flush.”

In recent years, the effort to redevelop poorperforming citrus properties has increased,which has caused many growers to attempt toharvest the crop, push, pile, burn and prepare theland in a period of a few months. When you addthe variable factor of weather into that equation,many plantings are often delayed well into thesummer because the property just isn’t ready.Although success can be achieved when planti-ng after July 1, there are many problems thatcould occur and are difficult to prevent.

Trees that are dug from a field-grown nurs-ery undergo a certain degree of shock when they

are harvested. This shock is not a major factor inthe February-to-May time period, when treesare not faced with higher temperatures after theyare dug. However, when this same tree is dug inthe later part of June through August, the treesin the nursery are more active and many tend todie back within the first couple of weeks afterthey are dug and planted. This dieback is ran-dom and is often not preventable, especially onnavel orange trees. The best way to eliminatethis problem is to insure your property is readyfor planting prior to July 1.

SITE PREPARATIONThe goal of any new citrus development is to

have a well-prepared site prior to the winter rain.This means that if an older orchard is beingpushed out, this should occur in late spring orsummer. The problem that has arisen recently isthat it is difficult to burn during this period andmany growers have turned to chipping the treesas an alternative (see photo below).

For citrus trees, it appears that tub grindersare a better piece of equipment than the alter-native machines. At one time, chipping of citrus

trees was free because the chips were used in acogeneration plant to generate electricity. Chipsare still used in cogeneration plants, but oftenthe supply of agricultural waste outpaces thedemand. This has made it more difficult forchipping companies to find a home for citrusproduct, so the cost has gone up a bit.Nevertheless, considering the air quality regu-lations, it may be simpler to hire a chipper.Burn days are becoming less frequent and wait-ing could cause serious land preparation delays.

It is also important to rip the ground after agrove is removed. The best time for ripping iswhen the soil is dry, so it is best achieved in thelate summer or fall.

This allows you to achieve the highest levelof fracture through any hardpans or plowpans.Since 85 percent of citrus roots are in the top 18inches of soil, ripping to 3 feet is sufficient unlessyou need to attack hard pans that are deeper.

The moral of the story is to get trees pushedin the late spring and early summer, thus allow-ing adequate time for proper site development.

It’s also a good idea, once the site is cleared

Planting Citrus TreesSuccessfullyby Roger Smith

MID-WINTER 2003

Please see Planting on page 3

Ron Cosart has been managing ag propertiesfor over 20 years. He currently manages citrus,pistachios, grapes and olives for David EvansFarming with properties from Orange Cove toKern County. Over the course of his farm man-agement career he has directed the develop-ment of more than 2,000 acres of new grovesand orchards.

TS: How do you remove an old citrus orchard?

Ron: I still use a dozer. I’ve tried snipping andchipping, but wasn’t happy with the results.When you remove the trees is important,although getting the last crop off normallydetermines when you can start. You hope toget in early enough to get the site dried out sowhen you push you can get most of the roots.Early fall, if not summer, is the better timeframe to push. When you roll the hoses up,you’re committed.

TS: How long would you wait to replant?

Ron: The more time you give yourself the bet-ter. If it was a perfect world I’d let it lie fal-low 2 years to let the nematodes die and givethe ground a rest, but the economics forceyou to get it replanted quickly.

TS: In the process of redeveloping, what problemscould you encounter?

Ron: Deep tillage is needed and the mostproblems result when people don’t do theirground prep properly. When the trees aregone, it’s the last time you’re going to have achance to do major work on the site for 30years or more. Early on if you don’t know theground, you need to get a backhoe in to dodue diligence to see what you have under-ground. There may be a heavy pan layer 11/2

feet deep or a sand layer 3 feet down. A cou-ple hours with a backhoe can tell a story onthe ranch. You’re going to make a huge

investment and some time spent in advance iswell worth the effort. Deal with drainageissues because the old grove may have had apothole where trees have died off and you’llrepeat the same thing if you don’t fix it. Ifyou think there’ll be difficulties channelingwater, you need to decide what to do beforeyou rip it. After you put the trees in you can’tdo any of this and you may also have puttrees where they have no business beingplanted. Usually, it’s a water issue, but if italways freezes in certain spot, why plant it?

TS: What do you mean by deep tillage?

Ron: Well, it really depends on the soil typeand soil depth. Minimum ripping should beat least 4-5 feet because you’re setting thedrainage up that you can’t do again. Rippingin two directions may not buy you anythingin some soils if one pass does a good job.Some guys skim at 2 feet and in wet years thewater backs up into the root zone.Remember, you’re building a reservoir forthe tree when you irrigate and you’re tryingto get air into it to revitalize the stuff.Sometimes, adding a pass with a slip plowwill pull a sandier layer up and can lightenthe profile up. There’s some good and badwith that, though, as some West Side guyshave pulled up salts that they have spentyears pushing down.

TS: How do you smooth the ground after deep tillage?

Ron: On flat ground a land plane works well, butthere’s a lot of ways to go and it again dependson your soil and the size of the property.

TS: If it’s been a few months since the site was pre-pared, do you do anything to it prior to planting?

Ron: Well, it depends on the weeds, but if it’sbeen a while since the ground was worked Ilike to go back through after they put in theirrigation system. When they mark for thesystem, I only mark where the laterals goinstead of the whole field. When installing asystem, people drive all over the field spread-ing pipe and parts and a lot of times birdswill pull up the straws. Put the system in andwhen you get done, re-disc it, get yourground just right, and then you’re ready tostraw it (marking is done with soda straws)and lay out your hose.

TS: What kind of tree planting method do you prefer?

Ron: I think you get better soil contact withshovel planting if your land prep was proper-ly done. When I was a kid, my Dadimpressed on me that a posthole digger wasbetter than an auger. His philosophy was thatif you had ground that wasn’t prepared wellenough, the auger compacted the sides. Iknow a lot of people don’t agree with that,but it always seems to come back to havingproper land preparation.

TS: Any pointers on how to manage the day of planting?

Ron: Tree handling is important. Use a bintrailer and make sure the guys don’t throwthem and bust off the bottom half of the root-ball. It’s also important to make sure they areplanted to the right depth. An experiencedplanting crew is almost at a dead run whenplanting trees and are doing a nice job, butinexperienced guys can do a poor job eventhough they’re going slower. The hole hasgot be deep enough and you have to be awareof the tricks the planters use to get away withplanting shallow. (They’re paid piece rateand shallow trees saves them time.) They’lljump on the top of the ball or fracture thebottom of a container tree to make the root-ball shorter to fit a shallow hole.

TS: What about once they’re planted?

Ron: Water them up. I normally have guys sup-porting the planting crew. They put thespaghetti hose next to the tree, put on treewraps, and then check the irrigation that we doto settle the roots. I like to use a fanjet with a“top hat” that puts the water close to the tree.People disagree about the volume of water toput on, but I usually tend to go more than lessfor a given location. Getting the tree to resettleafter the first irrigation is almost impossible, soI don’t mind drowning them and then lay offthe water for a while until they need it. Whenwe had furrows, watering in was easy, but witha fanjet, making sure there are no air pockets isa big deal. As a general rule, we water them infor 12-24 hours. I don’t think you need basinsaround the tree all the time, but it goes back tohow good the soil prep is. You got to make surethe water isn’t running off.

TS: Thanks Ron.

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and leveled in the fall, to apply herbicides suchas Trifluralin or Goal to eliminate the need todisk winter weeds prior to planting in the earlyspring. When you don’t have to contend withweeds, all you need is the soil to be dry enoughto spread the trees through the field, whichcould allow a much earlier planting date.

The primary limitations to an early plantingin January or February are rain and frost.Typically, any freeze that occurs after Feb. 1will not be severe enough to affect a field-grown nursery tree. Field-grown trees are stillin dormancy and don’t even know that they’vebeen dug. A mild freeze that could occur inFebruary would have no affect on these trees.

While rain does not hurt newly planted cit-rus trees, it can inhibit the ability to get equip-ment into the field. As stated above, growerswho have successfully prepared their propertyfor a February planting may often find that theycan get the trees planted between rainstorms.

HOW TO PLANT CITRUSHow to plant a citrus tree can be a topic

that yields great debate. The economic reali-ties of our times have forced many growers topursue the cheapest planting method. Somecompanies may still pursue planting citrustrees with a tractor-mounted auger, but thishas become rare. Augured holes are certainlythe most effective way to insure a tree is prop-erly planted because it reduces the possibilityof air gaps around the roots. However, becauseof the higher cost of this method, a vast major-ity of citrus trees are now shovel planted (seephoto at right). The shovel method costs abouthalf of what the auger-planted tree costs.Professional planting crews are fast and effi-cient and an experienced tree planter can liter-

ally plant a tree every 30 to 40 seconds.This high degree of efficiency gets the trees

into the ground, but does not guarantee theyhave been planted properly. The rows and treesmight be straight, and planted to the rightdepth, but it is likely that air gaps remainaround the rootball which will slow the tree’sinitial growth.

In some soil conditions, air gaps can beeliminated by the irrigation that occurs direct-ly after planting. A means to discover if airgaps exist in the newly plantedorchard is to walk through theproperty and randomly select treesto test for air gaps. Take a soilprobe or a 3/4 inch piece of re-barand probe the area right next to thetree’s rootball. If the probe pene-trates the soil easily, then it’s like-ly an air gap exists underneath thesoil surface.

Discovering just one or two airgaps during your survey would beenough reason to go through theentire planting and tamp in thetrees to insure air gaps have beeneliminated. Although an extra cost,eliminating air gaps can be the bestinvestment you make because itinsures roots develop into all thesurrounding soil instead of waitingfor the gap to collapse by itself.

For more information on thecitrus planting process, contact theTreeSource Nursery office at (559) 592-2304,or drop by our booth in Pavilion A during theWorld Ag Expo in Tulare and pick up our “howto” brochure. When you consider that a crewcan plant a tree every 30 to 40 seconds, it isimportant to have a good plan in place prior tothe arrival of the planting crew. This brochure

will help you develop that crucial plan. For details on post-planting practices, look at

the summer 2002 issue of TreeSource News orvisit our Web site at www.citrustreesource.comand click on “TreeSource publications.” You’llfind it under TreeSource News (Summer 2002).

Putting the odds in your favor whenplanting citrus trees requires careful plan-ning. Letting a redeveloped site “rest”through the winter is always preferred to thespringtime effort to push, pile, burn/chip,

prep and plant. Spring is a good time to startpreparing for next year’s planting, and it’scertainly not as stressful as trying to geteverything done in a few months! AtTreeSource, we are here to help facilitateyour efforts and help relieve some of thestress. Call us if you have any questions.

Call Joelle Morris at (559)592-2304 about 2-3weeks before the day you want to plant.

SHE NEEDS TO KNOW:

• The EXACT tree count. Please don’t rely onthe count of the crew that marks the field.Sometime they make mistakes and it is bestto double-check their count before you callus. Always count a field twice to avoid errors.

• The address and the county of the plantinglocation for the Ag Permit

• Name of the bins you are providing for thetrees. We put 50 trees in each bin and requestyou drop them at the nursery 7-10 days priorto your planting date.

• Whether you want us to deliver the trees oryou want to pick them up yourself. We chargea modest delivery charge and use DannyLopez who provides us with very fair rates.His drivers are also experienced tree haulersand forklift drivers. If you have less than 200trees, it pays to pick them up yourself.

Tree Pick-up Procedures

Planting continued from page 1

• Time you’ll need the trees delivered. Oncescheduled, make sure we know of anydelays. We try to be ready in advance of yourplanting date, so please notify us right awayif problems arise.Good communication helps us serve you

the best, so give us some time to handle yourorder properly. Tulare County regulationsrequire a Moving Permit for ALL citrus treesand budwood. Even small orders need a mini-mum of 48 hours notice for us to get the paper-work done!

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Available trees for2003 Plantings

502 North Kaweah, Suite “B”Exeter, California 93221

Std PresortU.S.Postage

PAIDVisalia, CA

Permit #520

NAVELSAtwoodAutumn Gold LateBarnfield LateBeck EarlyCara Cara PinkChislett LateFisherFukumoto EarlyGilletteLane’s LateParent Wash.

Powell LateRush T.I. EarlySpringZimmerman T.I.

MANDARINSGold Nugget MandarinNules ClementineNour ClementineW. Murcott (Afourer)Okitsu Wase SatsumaDobashi Beni Satsuma

Owari SatsumaShasta Gold Seedless Mand.Tahoe Gold Seedless Mand.Yosemite Gold Seedless

MISCELLANEOUSMato Buntan PummeloChandler PummeloMelogoldOro BlancoMinneola TangeloMoro Blood

Tarocco BloodMeyer Lemon8A Lisbon LemonSeedless Lisbon Lemon YuzuCutter ValenciaOlinda Valencia

CHECK OUT:www.citrustreesource.comfor other available selections.

Call Roger Smith at 559-804-6176 or Joelle Morris at 559-592-2304 for availability. REMEMBER: If we don’t have what you need, let us try to find it for you.

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2003 World Ag ExpoFebruary 11 thru 13, 2002Pavilion “A” • Booth #1073

Come and take a look at our “Mini-Trees”

2003 World Ag Expo2003 World Ag ExpoCome see us at the

Available trees for2003 Plantings

NOW TAKING ORDERS FOR 2004. PLACE YOUR ORDER NOW FOR BEST SELECTION!