Nursery Production Systems: Tough Urban Landscape Trees on Rough Sites

Summary: Nursery production systems set tough urban landscape trees on congested, polluted, tough sites that suit drought- and stress-tolerant root architecture.

Transportation of bare-root (BR) trees may require minimal effort and time; transportation of a 28-foot, bare-root beech (Fagus spp.) tree, depicted in View of the Machine in Motion, and of a Tree During Transportation, in H. Steuart's The Planter's Guide (1848), Plate III, opposite page 186: The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item, via Internet Archive

Three nursery production systems accumulate assorted advantages and disadvantages that affect urban tree habitat niches, life cycles and physical appearances, according to an article in the October 2018 issue of Arborist News.

Co-authors Kelly Allen, Amanda Bayer and Richard Harper base nutrient and water acquisition, hydraulic conductance and urban tree stabilization upon fine-root biomass and three-dimensional root architecture. Their article on Nursery Production Systems and Their Impact on Urban Growth & Development (Part II) correlates circling-root architecture with 52 percent of stem-girdled trees surveyed. Rootball-excavated and burlap-wrapped (B&B) nursery production systems deliver transplantable harvests with adventitious roots, debilitated soil-topped roots and deep-soil flares and without lateral roots and nutrient-rich topsoil.

Slow-establishing, short-lived bare-root (BR) nursery production systems encourage deep-rooted drought-stress advantages that extract low-substrate water even as fast-establishing, long-lived B&B systems exhibit ideal, superior radial-root architecture.

Fine-root regeneration, observable shock and shoot-growth measurements furnish evaluative measures of root-pruned bur (Quercus macrocarpa) and swamp white (Quercus bicolor) oak post-transplant hydraulic conductance and recovery.

Container-grown (CG), field-grown (FG) and in-ground fabric (IGF) black birches (Betula nigra) respectively generate 14, 17 and 45 percent of similar-volumed root biomasses as fine roots. Six-inch (15.24-centimeter) and 12-inch (30.48-centimeter) root-flare below-grade planting depths respectively herald stem-girdling root surrounds of red maple (Acer rubrum) trunk circumferences at 48 and 71 percent. Shoot-elongation rates, shoot xylem water potential and shoot-root elongation ratios identify the environmental establishment of urban landscape trees whose post-transplant normal physiological processes institutionalize pre-transplant rates.

Air root-pruning, not traditional, containers jeopardize the chlorophyll content of little-leaf lindens (Tilia cordata) even as field elms (Ulmus minor) journeyed physiologically stress-free through all containers.

Spring-planted B&B- and anti-desiccated root-tipped BR-grown common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) and live (Quercus virginiana) and swamp white oaks know sustainable post-transplant leaf-area, leaf-canopy and shoot growths.

Survival rates of 57 and 100 percent for container- and field-grown live oaks one year after transplant respectively link to a six-week regimen and biweekly watering. Arboriculture, master gardening, master naturalism and tree stewardship maintain irrigation flow and frequency rates such that high-frequency, low-volume regimens may be more tree-sustainable than vice versa. They likewise note phytoremediation by drought-insensitive, pollution-resistant, stress-tolerant urban landscape trees of nutrient-deficient soils into which de-icing salts, heavy metals and industry- and people-produced contaminants nestle.

Air-cleansing, nutrient-efficient, soil-purifying phytoremediation offers urban landscape tree options against climate change's globally-warmed increases in environmental temperatures, existing and introduced pathogens and pests and physiological stress.

Root-pruned B&B live oaks and Missouri gravel bed-grown, summer-planted BR green ashes (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) and red oaks (Quercus rubra) provide reduced-irrigation landscape programs drought-tolerant, fine-rooted transplants.

Container-grown nursery production systems queue up advantageously economically plantable, injury-free, transportable fine-root biomass and disadvantageously abnormal circle-root architecture and compromised anchorage, drought-stress establishment and nutrient uptake. Drought-tolerant, fast-establishing B&B systems reveal ecosystem-unfriendly, high-cost, injury-prone field-soil removal from reduced-root biomasses during harvests and high-cost, physiologically stressful installations despite extended planting materials and seasons. BR nursery production systems supply field soil for low-cost installation even though they sustain high-cost irrigation without root-dipped anti-desiccants; restricted planting material and seasons; slow establishment.

Nursery production systems; resistant, tolerant tree species; site aeration, light, moisture, nutrients, pathogens, pests, temperatures and traffic tender stress-free or stress-filled woody plants for urban landscapes.

Field-grown trees give species the most natural growing conditions and mature looks; image of field-grown American elm (Ulmus americanus) by Joseph OBrien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to:
talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet;
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for superior on-campus and on-line resources.

Image credits:

Transportation of bare-root (BR) trees may require minimal effort and time; transportation of a 28-foot, bare-root beech (Fagus spp.) tree, depicted in View of the Machine in Motion, and of a Tree During Transportation, in H. Steuart's The Planter's Guide (1848), Plate III, opposite page 186: The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item, via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/plantersguidepra00steu/page/n279;
The Library of Congress is unaware of any copyright restrictions for this item, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/45264768

Field-grown trees give species the most natural growing conditions and mature looks; image of field-grown American elm (Ulmus americanus) by Joseph OBrien, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 United States, via Forestry Images @ https://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=5053047

For further information:

Allen, Kelly S.; Harper, Richard W.; and Amanda L. Bayer. October 2018. "Nursery Production Systems and Their Impact on Urban Tree Growth & Development (Part II)." Arborist News 27(5): 12-18.

Gilman, Ed. 2011. An Illustrated Guide to Pruning. Third Edition. Boston MA: Cengage.

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