There are many age-old, philosophical questions that people have been arguing over for many years. What is the meaning of life? Nature or nurture? Do aliens exist? But Kyle Daniel, Nursery & Landscape Outreach Specialist with Purdue University, presents another one: “Should I remove the wire and burlap from B&B plant material?”
There are many recommendations, almost exclusively based on anecdotal evidence, from green industry professionals regarding the proper way to treat balled-in-burlap plants. These recommendations range from leaving everything intact, to removing all of the packaging material.
Wire baskets are an indispensable product for the green industry. The introduction of wire baskets allowed larger trees to be planted successfully with much less transplant shock compared to previous methods.
By removing the wire and burlap, most of the root ball will become loose or break apart. This situation is the equivalent of planting a bare-root plant, which typically will have a significant amount of transplant shock and require multiple seasons of staking and watering. This also significantly increases time to install.
On the other hand, leaving the wire and burlap will increase transplant success and minimize staking. The concern for leaving the packaging material intact is the potential restriction of roots as the plant grows out of the original root ball.
All parties agree that removing all twine around the trunk and root ball is necessary. Many times twine is synthetic, thus it doesn’t break down in an acceptable amount of time. The same is true for synthetic or treated burlap, but these aren’t used as much currently.
The debate between leaving the wire basket intact versus removing is essentially a debate between successful transplanting (leaving on the wire) versus long-term health (removing the wire). This debate is most common between nurseries/installers and arborists, which can create a negative view from the arborists of the installers/nurseries.
There has been a limited amount of data on this issue due to the long-term nature of the research, and the difficulty in clarifying stress/death from the wire basket or some other factor (i.e. planting depth, soil conditions, etc.). Traditionally, the thought was for initial transplant success that leaving the wire basket and burlap, at least partially, is the best method. A recent study on Norway maple and honey locust indicated no difference on early growth between wire intact versus wire removal. There was a significant difference in root ball condition and time for installation two to three years after planting. Since this trial was conducted with nursery soil, there might be differences when planted into the built environment.
The research on the long-term success of plants with wire baskets left intact is mixed. This is most likely due to species and site differences. Many plant species (especially faster growing), will envelope the wire in the roots as the roots increase caliper.
Current, science-based steps to planting a balled-in-burlap plant after placing it in the planting hole are:
• Remove and discard all twine around the base of the tree and the basket.
• Pull back burlap from the top of the root ball.
• Remove soil from the top of the root ball to find the trunk flare. If no flare is present (common on conifers), remove the soil to the top-most root.
• Remove the top one-third of the wire basket.
• Pull back or remove burlap in the top one-third of the basket.
• Backfill, filling in all air pockets.
• Stake (only if necessary).
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June 12, 2021 at 11:00AM
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