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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Coastal Planting

Given the number of people than lands here searching for Coastal work or info, and the fact that I don't know shit about it, except that it's a fairly exclusive club, I'd like to redirect you to this replant.ca thread on the subject.

Good luck!

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Difference Between Fast and Slow in Ontario.

Ontario planting is usually, but not exclusively, done on flat, fast land. Often, the land will be prepared by machines, so you'll basically plant directly in the organic soil thanks to various forms of land scarification (furrows, trenches, mounds, burns). The tree prices being lower, you have to keep a fast, steady pace and plant a lot of trees to make good money.

This video was titled "Pounding in Trees" on YouTube and it gets a beating in the comments section. Watch and judge:



Thought it was indeed pounding trees? That he planted fast?

Nope.

Here's my friend Jay Van Dyke, planter, crewboss, deliverer and comedian extraordinaire, planting at a much faster pace:



So, potential rookies, can you tell where's the difference, apart from sheer speed?

It's all in the execution. The first planter screefs with his boots when it's not necessary and uses the kicker on his shovel to get the blade deeper in the ground, while Jay uses his motion, and arm strenght to get the shovel deep in the ground and only screefs when necessary.

Furthermore, notice how Jay always have his next tree in his hands by the time he's about to put the shovel in the ground. "Mr.Pounder" does that as well, but it takes him so much time to dig the hole that it kills the momentum.

A little trick: Remove kickers from your shovel. Workwizer shovels don't have any, which is a good thing as it doesn't get stuck on vine, branches and logs as much, but mostly as it doesn't create the bad habit of kicking the shovel in every time you dig a hole. If you buy a BushPro shovel, cut the kicker off. If you can't do it yourself, auto repair or welding shops, or even Canadian Tire, could do it for you.

It's also important to note that the scarification here, furrows, allows you to plant in a basically straight line (sometimes the furrows aren't that straight, nor are they necessarily that "creamy", with soil exposed), while this type of planting wouldn't necessarily be the best in unscarified land, where "area" planting would probably be a better choice.

Finally, it's hard to judge quality while watching a video, but it seems "Mr.Pounder" plants a few leaners, while, apparently, Jay plants a duff shot. Depending on the contract's quality, and if it's not the exceptionnal tree, it could mean you could be replanting those trees a little later...

And if there's anything worse than planting trees, it's planting trees for free!

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

Alternative Grind

Here's a very interesting short tree-planting documentary by Jason Nardella. Prospective planters, if you have to watch only one video here, well that one might be it.

The images are fantastic, the testimonials are insightful, funny and touching. Ultimately, it shows a lot of what planting is about, as much as you can grasp from sitting in front of a computer. It was filmed around High Level in Northern Alberta and I would bet good money that it was a WildWoods camp.

Since this video can't be embed, here's part one.

And here's part two.

It's apparently part of a longer documentary not available on the web, that I know of.

Enjoy!

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Manitoba Planting Video

Basically the same deal, here's another vid showcasing planting and transpotation in an Outland Manitoba contract. You won't learn much from the video, but it can give you an idea of the atmosphere when you're up there.

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Northern Alberta Treeplanting Video

Here's another video giving some idea of the ambiance when you plant trees in Northern Alberta. This video was filmed in a Wildwoods camp in High Level, AB, in 2004.

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