What's a reasonable fert bag price in fast land?

[Nate]

In fast land - 2,000 to 3,000 trees per day on average - what's a reasonable price for fert bags do you think?

[Scooter]

I've planted ferts at about five different companies, and they were always priced at either 3 cents or 4 cents. Come to think of it, they were almost always three. I think we only got four at one company.

[newb]

In the past year, I received 5 cent with a company in the interior (Williams Lake area). I think it was 5 cents because most people were not experienced with planting fert and not all the crews had to do it. The averages were around 2000 for experienced interior planters.

With a more experienced crew on a small company on the coast we get 3 cent. Averages are around 1500 on high priced land.

[mcD]

In my opinion fert should be worth more on fast land. it takes me just as much time to put in a tea bag no matter what the land is like, but that extra time makes a much larger diffrence on 13c land than 25c

[Nate]

In my opinion fert should be worth more on fast land. it takes me just as much time to put in a tea bag no matter what the land is like, but that extra time makes a much larger diffrence on 13c land than 25c

Yeah, that's my feeling here. Fert prices should be inverse to the price of trees. For highballers especially, I think fert bags take nearly as much time as a tree in the fastest land. If they're 10 cent trees I think they should be 6-7 cent ferts.

Not that that's likely to happen anywhere of course.

[Scooter]

I wouldn't go that far. Once I finally learned to plant them properly (which took a few years), they became second nature. I bet they cost me about a second and a half on average, in good conditions.

Let's say I'm in quite fast land and planting 600 trees an hour, then I'm doing 10 trees a minute, or one tree per six seconds. So if the fert adds a second and a half, then you're slowing yourself down by 20%. In other words, you'd have to pay 25% of the tree price to make things balance out in the field, plus a premium because of the additional wasted time at the cache.

Actually, let me think on this for a few hours, and try to find some videos of myself planting ferts. And a second and a half is under optimal conditions: dry ferts and dry weather, and relaxed rules on the ferts (ie. they can be planted in the same hole as the tree, and you only have to put them on the opposite side of the shovel hole to give them their three inch separation). As conditions deteriorate, obviously the anger at ferts increases pretty quickly.

[jono]

I agree with mcD and Nate.

If I'm planting .10 trees, I'm doing three boxes of 410 spruce or pine an hour, which is 810 trees an hour. it takes me 2-3 minutes to bag-up which takes my planting time down to 51 minutes in the hour. 810 trees / 51min = 15.88 trees/min. Or, a tree every 3.78 seconds. If the fert is taking me 1.5 seconds according to Scooter, then 4 to 5 cents looks reasonable.

[Scooter]

Yeah, I think Jono has the right mindset. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I usually get a bit annoyed at the ferts at 3 cents. At 5, I'd want to be planting them. Four I guess is the line (for me, not necessarily for other planters) where I think that I'd be indifferent.

But I'd be wary of situations where the price of the tree comes down by a cent or two and the fert goes up, to make it look like the contractor is paying better than market rates. Because that would be a no-win situation. I haven't worked for anyone who I think would do that, mind you.

[KingG]

The reasonable price for t-bags is the price at which you would be willing to take them vs. not take them. ie If they are at your cache and you have the option to take them at the standard $.03, you wouldn't take them would you? How about .04? Probably give em a longer look. I'm guessing people would start taking them at .05 - .06. Of course that will never happen and we're stuck with .03. Same goes for bigger stock - the extra price is almost never worth it.