Large tree transplants

osb_mail

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Sean Freeman

Hi osb_mail, thanks for the photo, I think one of few troubles guys encounter with tree spades is that the job becomes too instant. Prep time is very important of the tree's chances of survival. When you think about it we are going to remove 90% of the trees roots and expect it to live? Common sense alone tell us that there's a lot to be done before and after that trauma occurs. Having said all that tree spades can make moving smaller trees simple fast and very economic.

osb_mail

Most of it is truck drivers moving the trees and not tree people . They really don t much about this kind of cargo.

mdvaden

So do the pipes get discarded, or do you re-use them?

History channel showed a bit of Davey Tree's moving last night on cable tv, but didn't show how they do each procedure, like getting the pipes under.

It seems that a person would want to salvage the pipes.

How do you get the pipes out?

Sean Freeman

Mario, pipes out is pretty easy, by the time you've lifted the tree twice and put it back down the root ball is much looser than when you drove the pipes under, we keep the root ball irrigated the whole time, not flooded but moist. Consequently the pipes pull out easily with a chain.


The pipes were used twice on this job, but they won't be substantial enough for the next job 40T+. There is no reason why with care and patience you can't reuse the pipes again and again.

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JohN Dee

Great work Boa with the tree removals, you are a very skilled Arborist.

The only pictures I could offer would be me transplanting my baby gum from its pot into a bigger pot :P

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Sean Freeman

JohNDee, thanks mate but I wish it was all me, it ain't there's three of us up here and Steve who owns the business is the one carrying all the risk on jobs like that one. I like to think I've completely changed his business in the 3yrs I've been working for him, and I think he would agree that is the case, but none of it would have happened without the three of us working together. (and we still have to do crappy coconuts every now and again )

clementine

Ol?,

Fantastic stuff, though it must have cost someone an absolute bundle!

Can't quite beleive the roots were so shallow, do now, seen it.

Takes me back to my underpinning days.

Signing out, in awe,

Nick.

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JohN Dee

That's great Boa, you've gotta love it when you and your team are like clockwork.

Have you mentioned Tree World to Steve and your other colleauge?

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Eric Frei

Those guys want appearance money.

Just kidding.

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Sean Freeman

Steve, who owns the business does read this forum, I've said to him numerous times he should register and then he can write when he feels like it. But I don't know when he will, he doesn't like typing or writing much...but you're still a nice guy mate!!
Tim does have internet connection but its used a lot by his kids. I think eventually they will both register and add stuff, I know they would both enjoy and benefit from it, I have.

Mike Poor

Beautiful work Boa! It will be rewarding to go back and see these trees in a few to several years!

Sean Freeman

OK, so we're one month on from the move and the two trees have has exactly the same treatments since the move, volume of water, soil and root treatments..pretty much all down to the work of Tim the tree man I might add. Good on ya Tim!

You will see in the photos that there is a marked difference in the trees, in fact the second tree hardly gives away any indication that it was ever moved quite remarkable...in person she's one happy young tree





Here's a better shot of the first tree, the foliage loss has stablised completely and new foliage is slowly being put back on, but clearly this tree is going to take much longer to recover from the shock and stress..mostly I would argue because of my error in judging the depth and therefore volume of soil and root mass to take.



and no I'm not going to post shots every month but will of anything dramatic happens and will at the end of the post transplant period 8 (7 now) months time.

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Eric Frei

Boa, you sure that aint local mutts peeing on that tree that caused that.

Maybe Tim did the same?

They're fine, stop worrying mate, it's not like there's a refund is there?

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JayD

Ekka,...Local mutts peeing on it!!

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Bernard Keays

Boa....New to this web site. Like your work. Did you root prune using air spade or water blast? Also did you take any photos/videos of the pipes being driven in? Did you install anchor points for next cyclone/storm event or was that not necessary? What after care/maintainance program do you have?

Sean Freeman

Hello Bernard thanks, the original plan was to root prune using only an air knife, but we found this was too slow, (our air knife is home made, the commercial ones generate far greater force and would have done the job) so we switched to using hydroexcavation-water blast.


I thought I had put some shots of the driving but heres a couple more, you could use a pnuematic system like they do in the larger moves in the US but we decided to keep it simple so used a hamer on an excavator.






We don't feel these particular trees need guying since they are fuly protected by adjacent much taller mature vegetation, also the sheer mass of the root ball around 25-30 Tons will prevent anything under cat 3 from tipping them and anything over well frankly guys aren't going to make any difference there! It would be different for a tree with a different form, and larger heavier timber in relation to the root plate.

The maintenance program is weekly waterings to soil capacity, fortnightly soil drenches of fish emulsion, seaweed extract, molasses and humic acid. This will continue for 8 months.

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Mike Poor

Now this is rewarding work! Great job! I wish more money spent on projects like this to move them. (I feel bad when unknowledgeable builders force me to destroy great trees.)

Eric Frei

I have a block clearing job Wednesday, a lot of typical rubbish has to rightly go.

But these trees weren't rubbish, that's the key, quality trees, which can take the transplant.

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Sean Freeman

Mike for me it seems that the biggest factor in determining how progressive a subdivision/land clearing/development is falls back on both the personnel in the developers organisation and the (more often than not chance) first contacts made with either Arborists or reveg company. Some very significant advances were made in the US in the last 10yrs with regards the size and shape of individual house lots...keyhole lots, releasing much more land for greenbelt..we still don't have anything like that here. But even with those and other dramatic changes in the recognition of the increased value of lots with vegetation remaining on them, the actual selection process and subsequent protection processes still fall well short of the mark.

Transplants are at the most expensive end of a spectrum of tree protection and retention...and of course will result in dramatically reduced longevity and compromised vitality for the trees concerned. I loved being envolved in the movement of those two trees and realy hope we will be managing one of the largest transplants in Oz in the next 12-18months (watch this space...hopefully!!)

I am more and more becoming convinced that the best appoach has to begin almost before the concept stage of the proposed development, centred around the carefull assessment and selection of suitable tree communities to be left in their entirety (or best can be done) to be a park or nature conserve area, at least in this way what remnant veg is there has the best chance at long term survival (along with the complex web of animals living there) and the new property owners can have a more realistic experience of what the bush was like before the development.
Developers spend enormous amounts of capital on the removal and revegetation of their sites, imaginative and inovative approaches to PHC and tree preservation can save both money and trees, unfortunately thus far being in the ear of the right person at the right time comes down to luck and chance!

Houthakker

What about cutting the circumference that you want to have and then filling the hole with soil that has no nutrients at all thus forcing regrowth inside the ball?

Sean Freeman

The theory behind cutting the root ball then back filling and encouraging root regeneration into the back filled trench (a trench that does not go all the way round the circumference but has sections still uncut) is to encourage as much new root generation as possible...these very very fine roots you must protect throughout the move.....explains the care taken wrapping the root ball and keeping it moist the whole time...so when the tree is lifted and replanted it already has hundreds (hopefully thousands) of new root hairs with which to begin reestablishing the required root mass and volume as quickly as possible.

The less stress we produce in an extremely stressful process the better.

Houthakker

Problem is the soil running away due to very short time that roots have been growing. These very fine roots dry exceptionally fast. Once we waited until winter and filled the ball with water which froze to ice, because of the very sandy, loose soil. Worked very good, tree is still alive and fertile after 6 years. Biggest problem was seeing to it that there was no ice at all left when refilling at the new plantingsite. After personal testing I found out that icy soil buried at a plantingsite app 80cm deep was still iced in july!

Biggest treereplant I've been with was a chestnut, weight 180 tonnes, app 105cm i diameter. Moved flat with the help of some enormous device to pull the tree over the soil with the help of metal plate that was hit under the tree. Sorry no pictures, to busy working.

Sean Freeman

Ha, mate the ice problem is one that we have not encountered here , that would be trickey alright.
Interested to hear more about the "sledge" system with the 120T Chestnut since we are thinking of doing the same with a heavy tree....but have forseen many problems.

Did you use a bulldozer to pull the "sledge" ? The plate under the rootball how many sections, or just one? How far do you go with the drag?

Have the feeling in the end we will stick to the method we have used before but I kno this "sledge" technique does have its use.

Houthakker

We moved the tree 80 metres, containing two sheets that were welded together in the hole. A pneumatic hammer was just to hit it under the tree. Two very powerful winches pulled the tree to its final destination. Personally I favor lifting trees, less fuss around it, used and proved several times. Easier to make a costestimate.

soutz

awesome job. i have a phoneix to shift bout 8m tall. i know palms take a lot less set up due to the different root structure but still worried about green weight. any ideas or formulas????
great to see these kind of operations happening hopefully this will become the norm instead of the exception..

Sean Freeman

We use the general formula of 1.3 - 1.6 ton/m3 of soil, that is for general sandy loam, clay esp wet clay can get up to almost 2ton/m3, and if you have lots of rock that will also increas the mass.
The biggest problem with palms is that specific site conditions may result in you having far less root mass than you would like, this can be very troublesome for the lift (and the long term health of the palm too!!) load inversion is a real nightmare for crane operators...use a spreader bar between the crane and the load, this enables you to have more than 4 lifting points esp in the centre of the load so you can secure the crown and upper stem to prevent inversion. See attached diagram.

Doc6.doc

Eric Frei

Sean, any pics of how they're doing now please?

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Sean Freeman

I'll get some this coming week though when I'm not sure Monday is nuts and Tuesday - Wednesday we're out at Charters Towers and Hughenden (plenty of pics of my old friend will be posted on my return very good news from Flinders Shire Council re the explorer's tree)

The two trees are looking good with the 1st transplant putting on the first proper new growth indicating roots re-establishing into the new soil profile.....with A. saman there is a noticable difference between very short lived emergency growth flushes (leaf size colour and density of bipinnate arrangements) and normal seasonal foliage, and its the latter which has been put out, a very good indicator.

Gerhard

absolutly unbelievably!

That was realy a big tree

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