Ideal Shovel Specs

[Shwub]

Hey folks, I'm in need of a new shovel for this season and was thinking of getting a custom one and I only know of two brand options.
a) Workwizer
b) Bushpro

Is there any other options? I'll probably rock the d-handle again, and I'm seeing there's different types of steel and such that exist for my options. What stats do you prefer? I need a starting point in terms of shaft type and blade.

I'll be honest, I don't understand them at all, just my old one is close to broken and I know it won't survive the season.

[newforest]

not to be the Yankee buttinski again, OK, well, yeah to do that, here is what I use






you can order these in the States, though the black ones aren't made any more. I want to try each of the two Canadian tools you mention someday. I am also going to order a new bar from someone in Iowa with a few different wrinkles to the design. Going up on a mountain of rock, I want a variety of tools handy. The "KBC" bar really freaks people out.

[Scooter]

That looks FAR too heavy. You really need to try a Canadian shovel.

[newforest]

yes, I do. it's not that heavy. everything is hollow except the blade.

here is what I use for supervising, i.e. digging to look for J-roots, and on my sand dune jobs, to put in 3 year bare-root transplants with 18" root systems loaded down with planting gel:



that is made out of aircraft alloy and is even lighter than planting bars. 5 year guarantee on the thing....it takes me at least 7 years to get the blade to crack a little.

now this sucker, is heavy:



but when you have to crack open rocks driven over by heavy equipment 5 too many times, it gets 'er done

[newforest]

the orange and black bars I posted first are ideal for tap-root species...you slide the tap down the blade into the slit, in-line with your boots, so you can see what the tip of the tap is doing. excellent quality results that way. (bare-roots for us of course). but that bar works real, real good for tightening up plugs too. just re-insert it adjacent to the seedling and a little hand motion and you are mostly done, you still need to put your heel to it to close that second hole and firm it up. those also are good on steep terrain as an extra support/staff/crutch as you move around the slope. many in the USA favor the hoedad on steep stuff, but when it gets really, really steep, I'll take the bar. you also don't bend over as far with the bar as the hoedad.

y'all might not know what a hoedad is either?

[Scooter]

I believe that Canadian planters on the west coast used hoedads in the early 1970's.

[newforest]

hoedads are still used a lot here. I ran one for three seasons. I think they aren't good for your wrists, but I know some million tree vets who disagree with that.



and I just don't want to bend over quite this far:





I got that last pic from a site I have never seen before, a nice slideshow of planting Doug Fir in Oregon:

http://outreach.oregonstate.edu/program ... ction.html

[TheHamsterizer]

the orange and black bars I posted first are ideal for tap-root species...you slide the tap down the blade into the slit, in-line with your boots, so you can see what the tip of the tap is doing. excellent quality results that way. (bare-roots for us of course). but that bar works real, real good for tightening up plugs too. just re-insert it adjacent to the seedling and a little hand motion and you are mostly done, you still need to put your heel to it to close that second hole and firm it up. those also are good on steep terrain as an extra support/staff/crutch as you move around the slope. many in the USA favor the hoedad on steep stuff, but when it gets really, really steep, I'll take the bar. you also don't bend over as far with the bar as the hoedad.

y'all might not know what a hoedad is either?

No offense, but you should really read through this section of the forum and get some proper gear. Those tools are absurd... You could get real treeplanting shovels with blades as long as the midieval torture devices in the pictures that weigh half as much, and have actual handles instead of solid metal. And the picture of someone walking in the mud makes me cringe- leather glove, cotton sweatshirt, (what looks like)cotton pants, galoshes? Bags that look like they're made of canvas or some kind of cloth? And then that awful "shovel"... Everything about that set up is so wrong.

[newforest]

yeah, one of these days I'll order one each of those shovels. of course, if anyone would let me work-visit up there for a week (can't afford a pure vacation), I would just buy one there.

but I don't think pictures always tell the best story, and sometimes when I tell stories, I learn things from y'all along the way. some of my thoughts here are from Scooter's pictures.

I use bags from Terra Tech out in Oregon, generally the "Southern ProBag", which is a little bigger than this one, now with a velcro outside pocket for rain poncho or water bottle, etc.



from what I can tell of the bags in use in Canada, this isn't very different, and is the result of decades of planting and planter feedback in the American industry. I kind of find the idea of a triple pouch load of plugs a little strange and a little much for a person to have on their back. In the picture I posted, that is a pretty ambitious load, probably 1K pine bare-roots. I try to require the use of the shoulder straps (and most importantly, the connecting cross strap across the chest, I don't think it is good for the body to not use them, but I think opinions vary on that.)

the planter clothing in that picture seems fine to me. The glove is a heavy padded glove for the right hand; the left-hand is usually bare for the improved dexterity. planting bare-roots without J-roots is more technical than simplistic plugs. and with bare-roots, good planting practice is no more than one in the hand at a time, so you need every bit of dexterity in your left fingertips to pull seedlings one at a time.

the job in the picture was a huge, wet "bedded" tract as we call them, I think you call them 'mounds'. the mound helps keep the root-collar up out of the water in low-lying patches of the tract. Also, fertilizer is laid into the beds when they are made sometimes, and the bedding wipes out all other herbaceous and woody competition, and makes perfect rows so the logging crews don't bump the standing trees when they skid out the first thinning. anyway, it doesn't much matter what clothes you have on (I read today that some in Canada wear shorts while planting), you aren't walking through any slash, etc., just truckin' on down the bed all day long. and the guy in the picture is a Mexican who probably comes from extreme poverty. most of them wire home 80% or more of their paycheck instantly every Friday night. they are not into spending on clothes, they spend their money on their family's groceries back home. I have had those guys show up for work wearing flip-flops, but we put a quick stop to that by requiring boots. flip-flops are OK with the farmers they usually work for. those boots are not galoshes, which are crazy cumbersome things that fit over other shoes and could never be used for tree planting. those boots are just generic rubber boots, that come sized like any other boot and are 100% water-proof. not Gore-Tex water-resistant. We sometimes plant in standing water up to a foot deep (hardwoods, though pine can go in a few inches of water). I wear rubber boots like that about half the time, they are great in snow, though I spend for a $100 pair that lasts around 2.5 seasons usually, and has arch support, etc. most planters buy the $20 generics that last about three months, and put inserts in the bottom for arch support.

and on the planting bars we use on most jobs, the first orange one, and the black one...if you had one in your hands, I think you would like it. I'll weigh one when I get the truck outta the shop, my hanging scale for bulk seed is in the tool box. the weight is not noticeable compared to a full bag of seedlings. (edit: again only the blade is solid, the rest is hollow tube steel). I prefer a blade that is perfectly flat. we might have to plant a skinny little tap root up to 8" long, with no J of course, so the blade has to be long. I wonder if anyone in Canada has planted a bare-root in the 21st Century. it's so entirely different it's hard to explain.

also we usually customize each bar to match the height of the planter by cutting down a bit of the vertical portion of the handle. I keep a variety of sizes on hand so people can find the right match. a few people put those rubber/foam pads from the end of BMX bicycle handles on the horizontal part of the handle, others tape them, but most long-time vets simply wear a glove on the bar hand and it's not a big deal. you do a lot of the driving of the blade into the ground with your foot on the step if the soil is tight anyway. there is another design called the 'speedy dibble' sold by Forestry Suppliers that is a lot lighter, but is worthless in anything except sand or on beds, in my opinion - it can't move much dirt as well without a bit of mass to the blade. you need a clean hole to plant a bare-root well. and the bar is mostly used in the US south-east; on the west coast they use more shovels of various designs, probably similar to yours. check out Terra Tech in Oregon (terratech.net), they have it all for planting, started by tree-planters in the 1970s I believe.

the KBC bar is nearly a medieval torture device, but you only use it in special situations, such as tight dry clay, or a lot of rocks, and in heavy equipment compaction. you can use the weight of it to help crack the ground open, and it has a step on each side, so you can stand on it with both boots. but you can get a two year old Oak seedling in the ground with it in most any situation.


I do appreciate your concern. I have been hoping someone would respond to the original poster in this thread, I would like to know more of the options on the tools from those two companies. and I hope my truck comes out of the shop soooooon.

[Mike]

I wonder if anyone in Canada has planted a bare-root in the 21st Century. it's so entirely different it's hard to explain.

I haven't, but I know people that have.

[TheHamsterizer]

I kind of find the idea of a triple pouch load of plugs a little strange and a little much for a person to have on their back. In the picture I posted, that is a pretty ambitious load, probably 1K pine bare-roots. I try to require the use of the shoulder straps (and most importantly, the connecting cross strap across the chest, I don't think it is good for the body to not use them, but I think opinions vary on that.)

You're right that the back pouch is bad to use for trees, but it's great for anything else you might want to carry. I almost never carry trees in it, and if I absolutely have to I wont put more than 5 pounds or so.

the planter clothing in that picture seems fine to me. The glove is a heavy padded glove for the right hand; the left-hand is usually bare for the improved dexterity. planting bare-roots without J-roots is more technical than simplistic plugs. and with bare-roots, good planting practice is no more than one in the hand at a time, so you need every bit of dexterity in your left fingertips to pull seedlings one at a time.

If you tried these gloves you would never go without them again, they give you all the dexterity you would ever need, they're like a second skin:

http://www.atlasfitgloves.com/atlasgardeninggloves.html

anyway, it doesn't much matter what clothes you have on (I read today that some in Canada wear shorts while planting), you aren't walking through any slash, etc., just truckin' on down the bed all day long. and the guy in the picture is a Mexican who probably comes from extreme poverty. most of them wire home 80% or more of their paycheck instantly every Friday night. they are not into spending on clothes, they spend their money on their family's groceries back home.

I understand, but it doesn't need to be any more expensive. Anything made of a synthetic material like polyester or nylon is superior to cotton in every way. Synthetic clothes dry faster, they're tougher, they're warmer when it's cold and wet and cooler when it's hot. Thrift stores are full of old fleeces, sports uniforms, and k-ways that are a dime a dozen, and sometimes you really luck out and find something made of merino wool or polyprolene, which would be pretty pricy brand new.

check out Terra Tech in Oregon (terratech.net), they have it all for planting, started by tree-planters in the 1970s I believe.

Awesome store, the only store we have here that comes close to that is IRL http://www.irl.bc.ca

[Scooter]

You're right that the back pouch is bad to use for trees, but it's great for anything else you might want to carry.

I usually carry a fleece, a plot cord, a zip-lock bag with TP, and a couple granola bars (for emergencies) in my back bag. Good stuff to have with you, just in case, and that stuff doesn't weigh much. And sometimes a gatorade bottle full of water, depending on weather/temperature/length of run.

[Rainman]

I've planted mega thousands of 2 year old White spruce bareroots, back in the 90's. I'd use a Workwizer style shovel if I had to do it again. Workwizer has all sizes of blades and will even make a custom size if you want.

I've planted with a lot of different tools when I was in Ontario/Quebec, including dibbles, carrot extractors, pottipukkis and all kinds of different sizes and styles of shovel. What we have now is the culmination of decades of high production planting. Believe me, the workwizers are well worth having. Don't hesitate, just get one. I guarantee it will be much lighter than the beasts you showed in your pictures.

Production these days is much higher than it was a couple of decades ago, partly because of the better tools.

As for the planting bags, yours look fine. I wouldn't give up my 4-baggers for them, but at least they look pretty functional. Just because our bags have 3 or 4 pouches, doesn't mean you have to fill them all up full. For multi-species I can draw out of both of my left hand side bags (4-bagger Bushpro) without having to look to see what I am drawing. I see the wet spot and I grab the right tree on my way to it, without looking.

I am looking forward to reading your experience with what I would call "superior" Canadian planting gear.

[Screefhead]

I wonder if anyone in Canada has planted a bare-root in the 21st Century. it's so entirely different it's hard to explain.

I haven't, but I know people that have.

I planted bare root for my entire first season

[Seabass]

I wonder if anyone in Canada has planted a bare-root in the 21st Century. it's so entirely different it's hard to explain.

We had 50k of them just outside PG 2 years ago. Was brutal when some foremen don't know how to plant them and you see their planters planting them with a few inches of root sticking out of the ground after U-rooting it from not putting their shovel in deep enough and still trying to squeeze a large root system in a tiny hole barely fit for a plug

[chronic]

Yup entire first season as well. Pl and Sx. In the interior and on the coast

[newforest]

I'd say production goes up more from the switch to plugs than minor differences in tools. Load-and-go, smaller holes to make, less finesse required to get the root system right, less weather conditions to worry about, less finicky seedlings killed by handling before they even get in the ground... I love plugs. Production of them is increasing here in the USA, but slowly. Some species (Longleaf Pine, Atlantic White Cedar), are plug-only at this point, but that is the exception, though the mass production and success of Longleaf Pine plugs has finally shown foresters in the south the advantages of them for other species. From what I can tell though, the machine planters don't always like them, and they handle a fair amount of the planting volume in a lot of areas.

I've been encouraging the nurseries where I live to try them, but all of the nursery owners say the same thing ... I have less than ten years to go in this business, and my kids aren't interested in it, and I'm not developing a new product line. I have heard this from 4 different nurserymen. Then they all bitch and moan when my State government buys a million or two plugs from PRT instead of buying in-state. There are some sources in other northern states, but the shipping to where I live and work kills the whole idea. It is almost cheaper to plant bare-roots twice, if necessary, than to plant plugs to start with.

I will try out a shovel from each Canadian source one uhhh these days. I'd really like to visit y'all and buy them in person. Hopefully your unemployment goes down far enough that you will all be back to looking everywhere for experienced planters.

And the bar I put up pictures of really matches up perfectly with bare-root Loblolly Pine seedlings, the #1 species planted here. Those bars have planted billions of them very successfully. We use them differently than they are designed - originally they have a "T"-bar handle like that KBC bar does, and you are theoretically supposed to use it with the blade perpendicular to your body. We cut half the handle off, lower the height of it, and use the blade parallel or in-line with the direction you are going. The Loblolly tap-root slides right down the blade, keeping it from snagging on stuff. Those bars work good for plugs too, especially the skinny 6" plugs I prefer (most growers use fat 4" or even 3"...not as good, in my opinion) so you don't need different tools on different days.

[jules]

Canadian-style shovels are designed to reduce workplace injuries, though, and it doesn't really look like planting bars are. They don't look very customisable for height or environment. I can't really see metal absorbing shock better than the fiberglass stock shafts on a Bushpro or Workwizer. I'd be interested to see data on that.

The bags posted above look okay, but I agree that I wouldn't swap out mine for them unless I had to. The main advantage of the extra pouch or two in three- or four-baggers is that they offer more even weight distribution, which reduces the chance of lower back injury. That said, I don't think I've ever met anyone who regularly bagged up using all three pouches for trees. The only people I know of who use three tree bags are people who use four-baggers. I mostly use my back bag for holding my plot cord, flagging tape, and water bottle if I need it.

The photo of the OR planters using hoedads is cool, though. It looks like a color version of most of the photos I've seen of MOF planters from the 70's, down to the flannel shirts and leather gloves.

[Scooter]

I never use the back bag in harder ground, but I guess I use the back bag pretty regularly when I'm planting fast land in the Interior (although I'm usually supervising when I'm working up there). But when you're in fast trenches or mounds, and you're planting 4000 to 5000 per day, it's nice to use the back bag to take two boxes at a time. Thunderbox. It's definitely harder on the back and not something that you should normally do. But then again, with really fast ground, there probably isn't any slash to worry about, so it isn't like you're climbing over anything.

Random thought: Working against gravity is much harder than staying at a constant height. When you come up to a log and you're bagged up, don't step up onto it and then back down onto the ground, because you have to lift your trees up 18-24 inches higher, which works against gravity. Step over the log and keep your bags at the same height off the ground. This is something I'm always trying to teach rookies, although all vets know it intuitively.

[newforest]

yes, shock-absorbing would be nice. one other thing about the bar ... they are mostly used on the coastal plain, where soils are either light and sandy, or wet, or organic, so it's not hard to use. by the time you get to land that might create a shock from stabbing a bar into it, other tools are generally used in the USA - hoe-dads. also, I really like the step on the bar, from the limited pictures I've seen of Bushpro/Workwizer shovels, the steps look much smaller. ???



well one never knows who I can meet here, I did correspond with someone looking for for a big wide transplant spade like the one I pictured.

now I am being asked to estimate and quote planting with gas-powered augurs. I have always resisted this....but it is a contract stipulation. I have zero experience with them. too many people here are impatient for the dang forest to grow...and since it's not their money, they don't care about the costs of various planting techniques, they just want instant forest, yesterday. I hate landscaping. more expensive projects = less projects. and the only place they'll ever put their money is in the planting stock and technology used on the project (site prep). paying a good wage to the planter doesn't make the list.

anyhow just wondering if anyone reading this has used augurs?

[Scooter]

Can you describe that in more detail? How big would these augers be? What kind of trees would need augers?

I've been looking at a Stihl auger, for digging fence-post holes.

http://www.stihl.ca/ViewProduct.aspx?Pr ... g7lURYQ7JA

[newforest]

what will the crazy Americans think of next? Actually, don't ever ask that question.

Augers look like this:



they would be partially helpful planting seedlings like this:



but I can get a seedling like that in the ground pretty good without any motorized assistance. I would admit that augers would be an advantage in some compacted soil situations, which is common on agricultural land conversion, but only on certain sites. in a minority of situations, an auger hole just becomes a little bathtub of water if the compaction beneath it isn't cracked open.

I would think growth would be better, I admit, with looser soil and a more perfect root distribution. But I disagree with what I call "landscaping out in the woods". If you want landscaping style results, I usually suggest that people call a landscaper.

The agency letting out this bid is at the State level here. They are under pressure from a Federal level agency to have trees be "bigger" come project review time, which is generally at 5 years after planting. The Federal agency is becoming well known for rejecting parts of projects simply because the trees aren't big enough yet, although this is done on the whim of the inspector simply on visual appearance only. There is zero science or data involved, as the size of the trees is not specified in the project criteria ahead of time, only that there be x amount per acre at the 5 year point, with sufficient diversity of approved species as well.

The State agency is now led by what would seem to the be perfect person for my position - a former tree-planting contractor. He is one of the very few people who has ever come out to one of my jobsites and told me my crew was doing a good job, and actually knew what he was talking about. He came out late one Saturday afternoon, the last day of the season actually, and was wandering around tugging on seedlings. That was a veteran crew enjoying easy work on a farm field, so quality was pretty much perfect on everything, and their tree-handling (only one in the hand, observant of excess exposure for bare-roots), was second-to-none as well. I figured it had to be one of the neighbors to the project, but it turned out to be the project designer (when he worked in private industry). And he did recognize quality planting - most people literally look out at a project and with conifers, they see the green side up and say "good job" without knowing anything at all about the truth of that, which is usually only revealed five or so years later.

But when he was a planting contractor, they used augers. They are used here and there in the USA, there are places where it is assumed that is how trees get planted - mostly on farm conversion jobs where the government is paying so much of the cost, no one cares about the cost. These aren't bulk scale jobs, more like 500 ~ 5,000 stems on any given farm, generally done to protect riparian areas from agricultural run-off. So now with the state agency facing Federal pressure on the tree growth on their projects, they are calling for augers only, and asking for two year old bare-roots, which can be monstrous at times. On the project linked below, we received some 2 year old bare-root Sycamores. It is the only time I used a chain-saw as a seedling prep tool - they ran 8 ~ 10 feet tall. We just cut the tops sticking out of the bundle with the saw to have any chance to plant the fricking things. [And much chance for any growth on the seedling; whips that tall generally can't sprout the buds very high up the stem after partial root system loss from lifting and general transplant stress. they survive fine if a deciduous species ... but can tend to grow out of the root collar more than from the top of the stem.]

Anyway, these things obviously frustrate me. I think I already wrote that if projects are too expensive, there are less projects. And no one cares to spend more money on the planters, it is just expected that will be some Mexican making minimum wage living four to a hotel room for months at a time, while all the professionals on the project enjoy fat compensation packages and cushy living, spending the public's money. Low-bid and all that, etc.

I took some photos about two years ago of a 2,000 acre (900 ha I believe) farm field conversion I worked on in the late 90s, though only as a supervisor, not the contractor. There were survival problems on one block were the engineers didn't estimate the hydrology correctly and only the Cypress and Tupelo survived, it was completely by species and had nothing to do with the planting - all the other species in the mix couldn't take so much water. (So I took mostly photos of that block). All other blocks had great survival. I doubt the bears can tell we mostly planted small one year bare-roots with shovels, rather than the route looking to be 5x or 10x more expensive I am being asked to quote today...

http://gallery.me.com/newforestservices#100024

so, rant over, thanks again y'all, if anyone has any experience planting with augers, please get in touch

[Scooter]

There's a lot of water in those photos, I'm not surprised there was some mortality.

If anyone here has ever used that Stihl auger, I'd love some feedback. It's supposed to have a system so if it catches on a rock and starts to twist suddenly, it has a fast auto-shutdown so it doesn't lead to bruising or wrist torquing of the operator. I've examined one in a dealership, but I haven't actually tried a running auger.