What's your favorite flagging color? (for planters)

[Scooter]

If you're a planter, what color flagging tape do you prefer to see used on a block to mark/follow trees?

I feel that this is going to have a very definite bias towards one specific color (and with good reason) because that particular color is used by almost every company/planter out there, when possible. But let's get a more "scientific" poll happening here.

[prof]

Pink is easily the most visible, but for that reason is used almost exclusively for management. Blue it is!

[PatrickB]

Blue flagging is superior to orange in every way.
Only ever had the choice between blue or orange, so my vote might make it biased.

I used teal and it was terrible.

[Scooter]

It's interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that different colors work different in different locations and at different times of year.

For example, I find that pink is actually more visible than blue in conditions with less sunlight (ie before 9am and after 4pm) in early May, in Interior locations where the blocks were cut within the last year, and effectively the only colours are shades of brown, grey, black, etc. No grass, no brush, no plants. The darker tint of the standard flagger blue blends in more with the darker earth tones than pink does.

Yet in a block covered with fireweed, such as the one that I was planting today, if the flowers haven't changed to dander yet, the pink would be almost invisible whereas blue would stand out much more readily.

So in other words, certain colours may have certain advantages in limited situations, but the original intent of this poll was for the best "universal" colour.

[E.E]

"What's your least favourite flagging colour?"

purple
also teal is so much better than blue. How many blue voters have actually tried teal?

[chronic]

pah. blue blue blue. its the only colour you need. its the only colour that stands out. all light conditions. lupins are purple not blue. fck. teal. its only a backup. yes I've used them all. 20 yrs plus. give me blue or fuck off and try and find my trees.

[Nate]

I have a negative association with blue from having checked a piece where an 18 was planted where 8's were called for. Every tree was flagged blue. It was around dusk the first time I saw it and wondered if in low light conditions someone planting quickly/not paying close attention planted through their own flagged lines a couple of times or if they just planted an 18 because they thought they could/didn't realize/whatever.

I always preferred pink, but as mentioned it's usually a boundary/forester colour. Orange was my second favourite. That said, I hated flagging as a planter (mainly because I never really learned how to do it properly/quickly).

[Scooter]

lupins are purple not blue. fck.

May I suggest that you look at the photos on the right side of the following page. You are both correct and incorrect, depending on the variety of Lupinus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin

[chronic]

still a different colour than blue ribbon. have planted through fields of these with blue ribbon. no problems. every company i've worked for blue is the first to go or run out. and every year theres a bin of shitty old rolls of other colours carried over. as with everything in planting though, technique is everything, even ribboning.

[newforest]

It's interesting that nobody has yet mentioned that different colors work different in different locations and at different times of year.

For example, I find that pink is actually more visible than blue in conditions with less sunlight (ie before 9am and after 4pm) in early May, in Interior locations where the blocks were cut within the last year, and effectively the only colours are shades of brown, grey, black, etc. No grass, no brush, no plants. The darker tint of the standard flagger blue blends in more with the darker earth tones than pink does.

Yet in a block covered with fireweed, such as the one that I was planting today, if the flowers haven't changed to dander yet, the pink would be almost invisible whereas blue would stand out much more readily.

So in other words, certain colours may have certain advantages in limited situations, but the original intent of this poll was for the best "universal" colour.

I used blue amongst all the fall colors the other day on seed work, it worked great. During the summer, I much prefer pink or orange amongst all the green everything.

[krahn]

are any of the votes for Teal from companies other than folklore? it's the only place i've seen it. although i must say it's not too bad, i prefer blue but this bluegreen colour isn't nearly as bad as i expected.

i think one thing to account for is the amount of pigment in the flagging. transparent blue isn't as good as a thicker blue, and with pink it's more noticeable for me. i love pink if it's easy to rip off and not see-through. if it's too thin though i can hardly see it.

[Scooter]

I've seen a lot of teal on the coast. There's one major licensee on the coast that won't allow blue flagging on their blocks (I think it's what they use for road building layout) so teal seems to be common when working for them.

[trip]

blue every time

[Aeryk]

I have seen teal on the coast as well, we also used blue though so it had nothing to do with the roads, just sometimes there was not any blue

[Zach1465]

I think blue is pretty obvious,
I will do anything I can to avoid a lot of flagging, I think it looks sloppy but under ideal circumstance I would use two colors, red for flag lines because multiple flags make it easier to see. Blue for inside your land because blue is the most visible in most kinds of blocks.

[krahn]

unless you get a block with even occasional spots of blue flowers, then it starts getting confusing. we had some of those last year, but 99% of the time this isn't an issue.

[CreamDolphin]

My favorite is red. My brother is my planting partner so he always used blue and I used red. Different colours for a pair are good. In Ontario we don't flag much because we don't have to. Running on muscle memory and spacial awareness works great. We planted a 2K block with no flag once to %96 quality and perfect density. When I went to Alberta and I had to flag each tree it sucked. Back to the point, my Alberta camp only had blue, but I had some orange/red left from the last contract, and they had to ask me to stop using it. They couldn't see it and would line through it.