Cones/Tree Protecty Things

[mel_eff]

Scooter feel free to kill this thread if the answer is already kickin around somewhere on here, but can someone explain to me please how planting trees with cones works? Do you get paid more per tree, day rate, extra dollar amount per day or what? Just curious! Also how do you do it? I can't seem to wrap my feeble mind around it.

You guys seem bored, someone write me a big long post about it.

[jdtesluk]

Generally you will get paid per tree. SOme people will give one price (tree+ cone). This is typical in the Charlottes. Other times you may get a separate price per cone. I imagine day rate may happen, but generally it is piece rate like planting.

Usually cones (or cages) are attached with wire or zip ties to cedar stakes that are hammered into the ground beside the tree. This can consist of one OR two stakes depending on the contract. Some places will provide metal or synthetic stakes, but these seem to be less popular in my experiences. The hard part of the job (other than carrying the supplies around a clear cut) is the hammering process. This can be hell on your elbow, so gentle progression into the activity is wise.

The cones themselves may be translucent coated cardboard like stuff that you have to unfold, or metal cages that hinge together around the tree. I believe the true cone "coated cardboard) style are more popular nowadays.

Doing cone maintenance can often be a day rate deal, where you go out and repair/replace dodgy old cones or remove them once theyre no longer necessary. A lot of this occurs out of Rupert on the nearby islands, and some up and down the big island.

A while back, "vexar" mesh tubes were also popular, and they consist of just that- a mesh tube or sock that goes over the tree, staked into the ground with one or two metal rods that weave through the mesh. I believe the general experience is that flimsy little vexars provide negligible protections against determined and hungry ungulates.

[Scooter]

Ungulate:

Of or belonging to the former order Ungulata, now divided into the orders Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla and composed of the hoofed mammals such as horses, cattle, deer, swine, and elephants.

[kingjames_2nd]

See infamous mwainwright videos:

$1.4 per tree.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZMpNjjS9dw



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_srijUF ... re=related

[jdtesluk]

Great video clips KJ2!

[mel_eff]

Thanks guys!!! :)

[TheHamsterizer]

Here's a good trick:

Skip the tree planting part. Just pound a stake in and put the cone on it. So dirty.... Thank you Coast Range.

[Scooter]

I did that for three days with Coast Range when they were combined with Natural Borders. I was the highballer of a 12 person crew. My best day, BEST DAY, was $28.75 before camp costs.

That's about one hundred dollars less than I could make planting with my eyes super-glued shut with a seeing-eye dog carrying my water, and with some Rage Against The Machine blasting in my ears. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.

I know that that previous paragraph makes absolutely no sense, but neither did ANY of the specs on that godforsaken contract. I left the country because of those three days.

Thank you, NB & CR. I presume times and specs have changed. FYI, that was over ten years ago. NB deserved to die a painful death. CR has apparently improved in the past two or three years, finally.

[mwainwright]

coning for 30$ a day? theres a prison out behind chilliwack that makes its prisoners do some coning every once in a while. im pretty sure even they make more than that.

[50centtree]

coning for 30$ a day? theres a prison out behind chilliwack that makes its prisoners do some coning every once in a while. im pretty sure even they make more than that.

Is there actually planting work as close to Chilliwack in the lower mainland? I heard Agassiz and some places on the Coq. But anything in the Chilliwack,rosedale,yarrow, Abby area? As far as working in the Prisons I have a friend in Kent and they make less then 30 a day I'm sure of it. Like 2 dollars an hour or something like that.

[Mike]

I figured I'd bump this...

Anyone been doing cones recently? What are your strategies? At the moment we've been clustering them around wet spots or tree lines, but apparently the forester isn't a huge fan and might ask us to intersperce them evenly.

We only have 1 stake bag for a crew of 10, and 2 frame packs which aren't really designed for staking/coning. Right now the thing that seems fastest is working in pairs, with one guy running and tossing the stakes and cones, and another hammering the stakes in, then both working on cones. Got ~45/person/hour with no breaks and working super hard, but at 82 cents per cone that's only 37$/hour (or ~300$ on 8.5 hour planting day), and it's hard on the elbows using the driver (my right which is usually good is already getting sore), and that was a piece where they were all clustered along a treeline.

When you mix the stakes in evenly at 5% cedar, do you just bring out 10-15 stakes bungeed to your back on each bag out for your 5% cedar and use the stakes to mark the cedar, then finish the cones at the end of the day? Plant the entire piece and high flag cedar in a different colour? I do have bungees and caribeeners kicking around, and a standard waterproof dry bag that could probably be emptied and converted to a stake bag.

[Scooter]

When I last did it, I didn't use a staking bag. We only had four-foot stakes, so I put them into the back bag of a set of three-bagger planting bags with the stakes INSIDE my shoulder straps (my chest strap had to stay open). So it was like my planting bags were a huge quivver. Then I had my ferts and cedar in my drawback and fert pouch, my mallet in my opposite bag, and all the cones under my arm. I'd go to the start of my line, then start walking the line, sticking in a stake (by hand) in the approximate spot (not throwing it on the ground, because I wanted to see them better and not have to bend over) and then dropping the cone, and moving to the next spot. At the end of my line of 25 or whatever, I'd have gotten rid of my weight in about ten minutes, because all my cones and stakes were in the right spots. Then I could casually work my way back upon the line, planting & ferting the tree, moving the stake into the best spot and hammering it in, then putting the cone on and zip-tying it. By the way, my shovel was also in my back bag on the walk out when I was dropping stakes and cones.

On that job, I believe I was getting $1.04 or $1.06 per stake. That was with Evergreen.

On a totally separate note, I wonder why foresters have staking background as part of the requirements for "previous experience" on a BCTS tender. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Staking contracts don't happen that often. Basically, they're shooting themselves in the foot by lowering the number of potentially qualified bidders. Mind you, this may not be a bad thing, because less competition might mean higher prices for the companies that manage to do a lot of this work.

[jdtesluk]

I think the background item is likely because of problems with people doing a lousy job. Loose stakes, missed cedars, bad cone placement; these are all flaws that can be expected from an inexperienced crew and supervisor.

I favored doing the planting and coning separately. Definitely high flag the cedars. I did like Scooter with the stakes in the back bag with a bungy to my shoulder straps to prevent dropping. Get rid of the weight first, then pound away. Using a proper driver is key. No shovel or rock pounding if you value your hands and wrists.

Trying to plant and cone all at once is simply too much weight for too long.

Once I was staking in Cowichan, and I kept hearing a tweeting sounds. I eventually realized there was a whiskeyjack riding on my stakes. Apparently it flew along and visited each of the workers in the block, landing on them and looking for food or something. Probably got blown down from Mt. Washington.

Best coning I had was with Vexar mesh tubes. We had metal pins that we wove through the mesh and jammed into the ground. I could carry 200 at a time, with the pins in a custom quiver I made (like arrows). We received 35 cents per vexar. I was able to make 500 doing it because nobody else wanted to do it and they all left me theirs to do. When they found out how much I was able to make, the offers dried up pretty darned fast. Pretty sure those little mesh tubes are just like easy-remove wrappers for ungulates. They probably learned quickly that the flimsy blue mesh tubes indicated a delicious cedar seedling.

[mwainwright]

this is from 8 years ago, but we still do it this way. its really the only way. every other technique is less efficient, we have tried them all.

[Rainman]

At 82 cents, the best thing to do is quit.

[jamisnewsham]

everything at once.
its the only way.

small bagups.

Been doin these things since the 90s...

the Haida Gwaii planters are slaying it with this method, doin 600+ units on occasion.

Get used to Stake First than tree.

And Yes, you need stake bags, and another large bag for your cones.

[chrisdunn]

The last time I did Vexar maintenance I found an area where someone pounded the treeline. Cones everywhere, like plots of 12 all planted nice and properly hidden in the forest behind blow down and root wads.

[Mike]

1) We don't have those bags, and the 5 foot stakes don't stay in the back bag well

2) Where'd you get that mallet? We don't have any of those, either. We're using heavy steel tubes with a metal cap on one end pounding them in with that, mostly, but I switched to a smaller hammer because it was aggravating my elbow, but it's small enough aiming is annoying. A wide-headed mallet would be great to try.

3) Are the zip ties outside of the cone? Ours go through the middle of the cone, so you need to look down the center to get them to align.

4) Why aren't you pressing the cones open? Did you open them all before you bagged up? I'm sorta confused here.

5) We also have bottom flaps that need to be pressed out.

6) What's that cone bag you're carrying?

6) Your stakes look short --- 4 ft stakes with 5ft cones? We're the other way around; 5ft stakes and 3ft cones. 1ft of the stake has to be in the ground, and 1ft sticks out the top.

It's looking like we're doing a way different, vastly shittier version of cones without any of the proper tools.

[jdtesluk]

A few things here:

Some people set up their cones (put the ties in place) before heading out on their run. This saves time fiddling while you have your gloves on.

There are indeed different types of cones made by different companies, each of which have slight variations in their set-up.

Second, there seems to be different coning modes. One is where you are coning nearly all of your trees (ie., Haida Gwaii, some sites). In these cases, doing everything at once makes sense as you are just following your line, and you don't have to cover the same ground twice. It sucks if you have long runs though. The small number of trees you carry in such a run hardly weighs much, so you are really focused on the coning. Stake first because it is easier to get a tree in than a stake generally. Wainright's video is a great example of this. Scooter should pin it somewhere.

The other coning mode is when you just have to do the cedar, which might be 5-30% of your bag-up (occasionally more). In such cases, carrying everything can be a problem because your primarily focused on planting, and you don't want to haul everything with along while you're trying to plant efficiently. In such cases, it seems better to go back over your line to cone afterward, and ensure your cedars are flagged.

Choice of hammering tools seems to vary. Some like mallets. One company developed a special stake driving tool designed to make it easier on the hands and wrists because of the number of injuries happening from hammers. To each their own in that case.....just don't use a rock if you like your fingers

[jamisnewsham]

1) The stakes fit fine with properly functioning bags, ie. you need a bungee for the top of your bags to keep stakes snug.
for best results you can only haul about 25 -50 stakes depending on your ratio of coned trees to non coned trees.

2)the mallets were made of Yew wood, with about 6" wideness on mallet head, and 6-8" handle length.
so you have to figure that out, you want just an extension of your hand in length. otherwise to long will result in elbow problems etc.etc. as described.
Master Hustle made these and we bought them for around 40 bucks, there is no other tool than these for pounding stakes.

3) I know it seems fucked up but you have to put stakes in first. it may seem like you are planting stakes instead of trees, but that is just the way it is.
There is no way to have a stake firm in the ground unless it is done first. than pick a corner to plant the tree.

4) The cones on the charlottes are generally TUBES, 5 to a bundle one inside the other. the triangular ones with flaps and shit are everywhere else.
-The Charlotte TUBES come in super big bags that hold 10 or 20 of these bundles of 5. the bags are made of some syntheticy burlaptype material that dont generally take on a shitload of water, and are pourous. these are what we use to haul around cones.

5) you must know you need to have all your equipment ready ie. zapstraps already in the cones. these is the case with recycled cones. we had lackies to actually get the zapstraps prepped for us.

6)dexterity is escential for the success of cones mastering. ie. drawing, opening, and puting over the trees.

7) Bottom line is some people cant do these and wont ever be able to. just like planting. We had some pussies that avoided these things like the plague.
Others took the time to learn and adjust and become jedi masters.

Cones are an art ! and have to be respected in order to master.

The reward is better money and less ground to be covered.

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[Lucky]

When doing a small percentage of Cedar that needs to be coned, go through your piece, with all needed supplies and pick the best, easiest spots and plant the cedar, then go back through with the rest of the prescribed mix. As Jamis said stake first, you can always fit a tree in, you can't always fit a stake in.

[jdtesluk]

Great tactic! No need to flag either, with the great big Dalek cones to space off.