My harddrive fried and I lost a lot of work on this website. I will leave it unfinished
for the time being and get back to it if someone motivates me. But there should be plenty
of information to help rookie planters. I will try to upgrade it over time. I also plan to
add an easily searchable database where treeplanters can post comments about their
experiences working with different treeplanting companies <ask if need something for
treeplanting companies regarding the foresters/contracts> . All suggestions and
additions are welcome too!
TABLE OF CONTENTS |
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On the Next Page |
On This Page |
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Planning Your Next Treeplanting Spot Getting to Your Next Treeplanting Spot Prodding With Your Shovel Inserting the Shovel Make Your Treeplanting Hole Insert Your Tree Close Your Hole Efficiency of Movement Planting Medium |
Dietary Supplements Treeplanting Stories Stretching When You Treeplant Preparing for the Treeplanting Season
Quality Control Treeplanting Plot Cutting and Filling Your Piece Creamy Spots |
Other Pages |
Useful Third Party Pages |
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List of Treeplanting Companies Treeplanting Accounting Software |
Treeplanters Database - where planters can submit and view comments concerning treeplanting companies |
I planted for six summers (up to around 1991, when this treeplanting article was written), mostly in between university, and was always one of the fastest on any crew. Sure, there were the occasional mad planters who planted much more, but compared to the usual flock, I was always in the top 5%.
I finished school and decided to try my entrepreneurial skills in Prague, the Czech Republic shortly following the fall of communism. This move eventually led to the creation of my translation agency, my later migration into a truck caravan to travel around Europe while working, after which I eventually ran out of cash (gone treeplanting in travel blog) and came back to treeplant some 17 years later. By some fluke of fate this time around I ended on some monster crew. The super highballers of the entire industry, the average between them almost double the best I could do. I was perplexed and spent the summer pondering how this could be possible. I like to design web pages and decided to make one for treeplanters, teaching them everything I learned about how to make big bucks while treeplanting. I didn't manage to figure out how the others on my new crew put in such high numbers (I wont use twice their age as an excuse), but since I am naturally analytical I ended up spending much of my planting time pondering over and analysing what I was doing. |
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Below I have written all that I can think of treeplanting to help you plant faster and enjoy your season with minimal pain. << Here is an article I was asked to write about the treeplanter's vagabond lifestyle.
Such an arduous job will inevitably tax your body. My metabolism seems to double, with an appropriate increase in food consumption. My wounds seem to heal three times faster. Your nails and hair will grow faster as well. While fasting, I've learned that your body can consume up to 60% of its energy converting food into usable energy. Breaking down a tough steak, for example.
So there is definitely a science to proper food consumption in order to make your body as prepared and fit as possible in order to ensure optimum performace, and hence income. One researcher studied the treeplanting profession and came up with an optimum diet, with all sorts of other treeplanting tips <download documents to my site first> . In brief, you wouldn't want to eat meat during the day, shifting rather to a glucose oriented diet, where your body needs glucose for the physical work. But protein is important for muscle regeration. 10 hours a day of struggling with a shovel in nature, and then crawling over logs will put a big strain on the body. It is like sporting for that long. Ideally your body needs to rest so that it can recuperate. But since you are denied of that, without a proper diet, you will find your body starts to eat your muscles to convert them to glucose, required for the physical exertion. Without a proper diet treeplanters can look like guantly but strong muscle skeletons. It is almost unavoidable. But I found that, with a good diet, I was able to maintain the job for many months, without end in site <<.. . Many planters apparently burn out after only two months. For muscle regeration, I found that drinking whey powder < with soya milk after dinner was a good idea. Let your body use the easy to process protein to regerate your muscles while you sleep - the best time for body regeration, when it uses its energy to regenerate the body. Obviously a good night's sleep (practically impossible with many, partying treeplanting crews)is important, without alcohol so your body doesn't have to first preoccupy itself with filtering a processing the poison <link to web info on that?> you just injected into it, before working on healing your body. You can get such protein powder from pharmacies, or sports outlets. |
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For the mornings I like to have eggs (more protein), bacon, cereal and milk, yoghurt for good poos, and then the rest of the diet is standard healthy stuff, like veggies etc. Lots of carbohydrates, which the body can use well for long and short term energy. Try not to eat too much in the morning, otherwise you may find yourself waddling around like a low baller for your first few bagups.
During the day <highlligt, and above, restructure paragraph?> I like to go more glucose oriented, so that my body can use straight glucose and use less energy converting glucose from carboydrates and other sources (like muscles). Gatorade < was suggested to me, but I soon decided that drink was more suitable for sporters, perhaps over a few hour period. But not 10 hours a day. Furthermore, sugar, the main ingredient of Gatorade, weakens your immunity system. So you have a bunch of planters who pig out on cookies all day, or sugar and sweats and gatorade with lemon ice mix, but half the camp can collapse for a few days with the introduction of some bug. Money lost on all ends. That is why you should focus on healthy glucose, such as mollases or maple syrup. The second ingredient in Gatorade is Dextrose. Just before salt, meaning it could be a negligible amount. My Chinese doctor recommended Dextrose to me after I had spent 5 months partying with my cousin, sleeping little and consuming much evil. I had depleted my system of resources, my face lacked colour and I felt weak. She recommended 10 table spoons a day mixed into Soya milk. It is actually quite tastey. Salt <highlight etc.> is important because it is needed to keep your body hydrated. Otherwise you get to a point where you pee out roughly what you put in. Our bodies are roughly 85% salted water. The fact that your tears can taste like sweet seawater can remind you that we all, originally, came from the ocean. So the correct amount of salt in your juice concoction is important. I like to experiment, and guage how much I pee the next day. If I add too much hydration chrystals, I once developed gas pain in my stomach (although I cannot be certain it was because of that). The last ingretient was monoxide < . I went to some pharmacies and asked them about this and was suggested < > , which has a bunch of active ingredients which help to hydrate the body. Designed for children with diareha < problems, but which can be used for similar hydration issues. Apparently electrolytes <link to external site> are important <study if can find some various sources of electrolytes etc.> (more info in the Dietary Supplements < section below). It is a high endurance sport. Move over Armstrong <link>, we've got some trees to plant. So it can definitely become an extensive science to feed the treeplanter with the ultimate and productive yielding diet.
For my drink then, I like to prepare the following:
two four litre jugs. Can usually get free milk jugs from the cook.
I'll put about four scoops of Gatorade into each jug. Probably not necessary and, considering the other ingredients you will be adding, it might be as suitable to use lemon or ice-tea chrystals <figure out spelling>, which would be a lot cheaper. Or just straight sugar and some flavouring. Squeezed lemon could be good because it is an important cleansing ingredient while fasting. But for those who want to go all out, you could just use more of the healthier glucose below <link> and knock out sugar altogether. Perhaps the noname glucose, acting as table maple syrup.
if you decide to go healthier, which inevitably means more expensive, you can choose your degree <tastes like warm piss> of glucose, preferably in the form of maple syrup, which is apparently the healthiest form of glucose. Molasses can be good too.
then you can add your salt and hydration chrystals <link to above> , experimenting to limit peeing the next day, while avoiding gas pain or any other undesirable effects you might suspect as attributed to the chrystals.
It should taste rather sweat. I liked it right from the start, but others who drank it all grimmaced that it was too sweet <spelling above> . Or it doesnt bother me to leave it in the sun until it gets piss warm. And I've been told it tastes just like that. But when I drink it it feels like I got light energy. I eat much less during the day. Eating is also time consuming. For optimum time savings, I've even considered sipping the substances through a hose all day. But I've been told that planters who have tried that experienced teeth problems, after being soaked in sugar sweets for an extended period of time. It can be a nice break to occasionally unbundle trees and just stand up straight for a change and swig back some energy juice. It does throw you out of your rhythm though, and I found I could survive reasonably well drinking only during bagups <link using different colour, to indicate that it is a link within this page - study seo about non-relative links reaching bookmarks located on the same page> , at times when I had misplaced my regular 1.5 litre plastic bottle I would fill up during every bagup.
Standing in line at the mess tent after a long day's hard work. For the rest of my day I liked to have rolled oats / trail mix / granola bars, carrots, one or two pj (peanut butter and jelly) sandwiches, and some fruit if they had some I wanted. These ingredients seem readily available on the usual camp treeplanter's menu. It might also be possible to convince the cook or management that shifting to such a diet, even mixing into big barrels the super drink < above could increase production and profits <link to explanation about profits relating to higher output per planter (production) > , in the name of higher production and profits. In the end, you should be aware of your body, and consider it as a machine which is yielding you income. If you fine tune it properly, you will be in less pain, be able to plant more months, and generate more income for yourself. When I first started planting I developed a big craving for potatoe chips and beef jerky. I satisfied my cravings and my roommate suggested that I could have been responding to a salt depletion. It was a big shock to my body, which had revilled the last two years just lying on a bed, with the occasional barefoot jog on the beach in between. So I would suggest that you listen to your body and make appropriate adjustments, if necessary. |
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With such high demands on the body, regular food intake will not be enough. The stresses and toils work differently on different parts of the body. Your joints are highly exerted, so the tendons need help with lubrication and other issues. So this is the better time than ever to pull out those vitamins and other goodies. With the big plastic jug of whey powder, I felt I had a small pharmacy in my tent. Below you will find a list of products I found through my local pharmacies. Ask various pharmacies in your area for their opinion, if you cannot readily find the below:
< take pics of bottles
whey powder - easy to consume protein to help regenerate muscles <link>
some form of glucose, such as maple syrup or mollasses (more info above < ). You can also shift some to sugar, such as Gatorade or lemon ice-tea chrystals, although this is not so healthy
chrystals to help you stay hydrated, such as < > (more info above <? ), salt
multi-vitamins can never hurt. Consider taking double the daily recommended dosage, or ask your physician
<green electrolyte stuff>
vitamin B complex, to help body cope with increased stress
MSM... , to help your joints. Should start with that program three weeks before planting as it takes that long to percolate through the system and begin working
comfry root <link> , to help the joints further. Very effective and work immediately. Can mix with tiger balm as well, which are very soothing on the joints and tendons <suggest a home made mixture once buy in Vancouver? Mention kostival in Czech..>
gynseng. Optional for motivation. May consider using at 3pm when the day winds down and you start to lose motivation. An extra kick for the last 100 yards, but make sure you do not overstress your body. Keep tabs on your overall state and be careful not to overexert yourself. Guage your activity and monitor your body, otherwise your body could make up its own mind and force you to take some days off lying sick in bed, costing you more money in the long run <write somewhere about * crying and all that> . Others have used Royal honey for increased boost
Spirulina <link, check spelling, fix in my other pages> - if you can find it somewhere, it is a one celled organism comprising roughly of 60% carboydrates, 30% protein and 10% iron. Your body just soaks it up and does not require energy to process it. Can come in a powder and you can mix with pineapple juice to improve the taste. Best drunk during the day, when immediate energy is required the most. <mention above in glucose super drink section...>
Many planters like to plant topless and get a wonderful tan. Preferably without straps <link to bags> , but I've seen people pass out due to heat or sun stroke and I advise you to be careful regarding this. Once I stopped for some reason and almost passed out in the heat, the sound of blood gushing through my ears overwhelming, adrenaline rushing through my body.
Because of the frenzy to get to the next spot and maximise earning, and the resulting excess in adrenaline, it is easy to overlook certain details. The Arabs living in the desert wear multiple long layers of cotton and drink hot tea. If you drink cold juice, it fills your insides, your body thinks it will be cooled and reacts accordingly - you sweat more and feel hotter. Personally, the bugs eat me so much that I cannot consider anything that would not cover my entire body, but I found myself better handling the heat with my multiple layers of white cotton. The reason why we sweat is because liquid consumes heat when it turns into vapour, hence the sweat cools our bodies as it evaporates. But I find that skin, especially the back of the neck, directly exposed to the sun will tend to heat up the blood circulating through it. Blood heated at the back of the neck will travel a short distance to the brain, overheating and leading to heat stroke and fainting. White French Legion hats can be quite useful since they cover the back of the neck and serve as a baseball cap in the front. |
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If you cannot find that I like to use a white t-shirt, pulling the collar over my forehead and down to my ears, so that I can flap the rest of the t-shirt over the back of my neck and tie the sleeves together behind my head. If the bugs are particularly insane I can pull a second shirt over the one to cover up my mouth and the rest of my face.
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Either way, if you find it getting too hot I would suggest the white cotton cover up approach as opposed to the skin exposed approach. Your sweat will saturate the clothes, slowly evaporate and help keep your body cooler. Most planters liked to wear some sort of pants, but I preferred to wear shorts and some sort of polypropelene stretchable spandex type long johns <link to stores in Van and Prince George> . I found that pant legs could slow down the movement of my legs. If possible, get white ones to help reflect the hot sun more. Also, deer and horseflies like black more. They'll tend to rip when rubbed against broken twigs and what not, so get an extra pair for a season. Many planters <beef up keywords..> like to use Gators <link to> , mostly to keep twigs from falling between your boots and your socks - a rather annoying place to get to. Otherwise I would just grab some camp duct tape every morning and tape it over my boot openings, while most of the time I found I didn't even need to do that. If it is not so hot and buggy that you need to cover your head with some white covering, make sure to get a bandanna, so you can look like a cool treeplanter. Maybe have a clean one for days off. Or roll it up mostly just to keep the sweat from dripping into your eyes. |
For gloves, most treeplanters use <Nitro> . The black ones are better quality, but significantly more expensive and wear out within roughly the same time. You should get a bunch at wholesale price and expect to use one pair roughly every four days. I found I could use the opposite hand on my planting hand. If I put the tree into the ground using my left hand, a right handed glove was actually better than a left. Either way, you want to cover up your planting hand fingers, as you ram them into the ground while carefully holding the seedling plug. Sometimes I imagined having some sort of a metal covering around at least one of my fingers, to help me plough through the soil. Many planters like to wrap duct tape around most of their planting hand fingers, so they wouldn't get so abused. The good thing about wearing the opposite glove on your planting hand is that the rubbery part, which normally covers the palm, would now cover the finger nuckles. Good because this is one of the first places where the glove rips, exposing your bare knuckles to rocks in the ground and gouging them all up.
Boots (here's a good link on treeplanting boots and gear <branch out to new page..>) should be as light and as water proof as possible. If you think you might treeplant for only one season, I found a 40 dollar pair of hiking boots that seemed to last fine. Others buy the very expensive pair sold at Marks Work Wearhouse and that are insured for the season. They bring it back and get a new one. I guess no company would think that a profession could abuse boots so severely. But if you get onto steeper ground with big dead logs, it would be good to get corks as well. Try to get the light version, because any added weight to your feet will slow you down markedly when clambering over large logs. When the logs get wet, it can get rather dangerous on steep ground, not to mention that you will be walking much slower so as not to hurt yourself in some accident. For socks I found two pairs of wool ones quite satisfactory, but many planters testify vehemently on behalf of Bama socks <link> , which are designed to draw moisture away from the inner sock (you would not wear two pairs of socks in this case). You could also consider getting a quality, orthopedic inner sole for your boots, to help absorb some of the shock of constantly walking. One brand which was suggested to me was Sole. You heat it in the oven and it conforms to the shape of your foot. The worst is when you wear rubber boots which do not breath well and cause your feet to overheat. Gators can also be useful to keep the rain out of your boots. It can be very unpleasant to slodge away in dripping wet socks. If it looks like it will be a rainy day, I'll bring out my boots as a backup, and additional dry pairs of socks, otherwise your feet can look like elephant skin and force you to stop planting. |
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If it's not the sun and searing heat its the rain and torrential downpour. And if it's not one of the other hundred things which make treeplanting living hell on earth, it's the BUGS! We used to always giggle and snort whenever a new planter would enter camp and we'd guess how long they might last. There is a certain cracking point which many people cannot cross, and one of the big contributors to that crack are the bugs.
Make sure you get a tent with a nosee'em net. Nosee'ems are flies which are so teeny you can barely see them, yet they seem to excrete their entire bodies when biting you because they sure are itchy. The mosquitos will drill into your back as soon as you plunge over to plant your tree, the deer and horseflies will bite through two layers of clothing, and the black flies will crawl under the folds of your clothing to get to the juicy soft spots. Some planters seem to have reptile blood and not attract a single mosquito, while others, like me, are always accompanied by a massive cloud of all sorts. Most insect repellents use Deet, which I would advise against putting on your skin (cancerous etc). You can spray the deet onto your clothes and it lasts for as much as 8 hours, while reserving your skin for such natural bug repellents as citronella and lavender (although my doctor cousin says extensive use of the latter promotes estrogen growth and hence boobies on guys). If you do decide to spray deet directly onto your skin, make sure it does not get into contact with plastic, such as the straps of your planting bags. Deet melts plastic (has been found to eat a massive hole THROUGH a car dash board) and has been found to cause third degree burns if rubbing between your skin and the plastic of your bag straps. In extreme cases, you can use the two shirts strategy <il> , or some planters use head bug nets - although it is not easy to see your trees through them. Try to get a white bug net to help reflect the heat of the sun. I once tried to combine the net with safety goggles, glueing the net onto the rim of the goggles and then cut out the net over the lenses once the glue had dried, but the buildup of sweat and fog on the inside of the lenses seemed unavoidable and intolerable. I thought I might try some battery operated windshield wipers for the inside of the lenses, but that project will have to wait. |
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Otherwise, the bugs weren't usually so bad that I would have to resort to these measures. You might also try a head strapped fan to blow them away from your face. The black flies can be particularly annoying as they plough into your eyes whenever you turn around to look for your next plantable spot.
Spray the citronella behind your ears and that area, as the skin is very soft there and you might find it swollen and bloody by the end of the day.
The deer and horseflies tend to stay of your legs if you keep moving them.
Sometimes the bugs can be motivating, because any still moment will result in an immediate gorge session.
Be prepared to have some if you ever need to go to the potty during the day. I don't like spraying deet on my raw butt hole, but some places are really sensitive and annoying to scratch.
When crazy people like treeplanters meet nature in such a raw environment, you can expect some interesting things to happen. Following are a collection that I have managed to remember over the years.
- One guy was planting away in a mountainous area and fell through the top surface into a deep ravine. Fortunately he landed right on top of a short log which had previously fallen into the ravine but created a cross bridge. Below that was open, dark and neverending ravine where the planter's howles may have easily escaped any rescuer. Sometimes I truly feel the presence of God out here in nature. - Once we were in an area where there were a lot of bee's nests buried in the ground. One girl was getting bit in the face six times a day. I was planting next to a friend of mine and thought to God that we should be spared any bee bites, as I believe that all animals listen to God. A few hours later I heard my friend scream and he later explained to me that he was screefing away the top layer when he revealed a nest of angry bees. His first reaction was to open wide his mouth and exclaim fear as the swarm of bees charged towards his face. He ran away and none of them bit him. A few days later I was planting in a slightly different area and came upon a microsite surrounded by slash. Above the plantable spot slanted a dead tree and I was trying to bounce it out of the way. I was nudging and pushing wildly at this dead slanted tree until I noticed some spots around me. I slowed down my movement, still pumped and oblivious on adrenalin pumping through my system, and it slowly dawned on me that the little spots were bees, as I heard and increasing number hum around me. As I began to clue in that a hornet's nest was dangling on the dead log in front of my face and I was surrounded by many angry bees, the spots began to circle around me and form a tornadoe shaped attack formation around my standing body. Once this clicked in my brain I started running as fast as I could out of there. About five second later and as I was sprinting away as fast as I could, I got a nip into each of my calves, which seemed to serve as a warning to me by the queen bee to pay more attention. |
Send me your treeplanting stories!! |
- Since bugs can be so mentally exasperating, I occasionally find myself running into a treeplanter, off quitely on their own, torturing bugs as some sort of rehabilitation procedure. One was burning them with his lighter and watching them fry away in a peatry dish. Another would tie a string through the butt of a horsefly and attach a small paper airplane on the other end. The horsefly would drag the plane around the premises. I often liked to tear off one wing from a mosquito and drop it to the ground below, satisfied in the thought that it would lay struggling there until some other bug would crawl along and eat it. Or while taking a crap in the morning and trying to fight off all the mosquitos, I would maim them and drop them into the pit below, plopping contentedly on their heads, satisfied with their dismal demise.
Having played sports much of my life, I learned the value of stretching. I guess it was more important to me now, considering my age, but many of the young ones would walk crooked and constantly complain about back and other pains. Many say that two months is about the limit, but I believe that, with proper eating and stretching, one can sustain this activity for extended periods (my record was 8 months). It is more than a sport, which can last only a few hours and be granted several days break. To make good cash, you need to put in high numbers. At least 2000 trees a day, where each tree can require at least 4 movements of the arm and much clambering over logs. It could be similar to pushing and pulling hard on a lever 10,000 times a day, while walking about km over various obstacles. One night of sleep is usually not enough to compensate for such lengthy exercise, and the muscles can easily get bottled up. Especially because most planters use the same hand for the shovel, and the other hand to hold the tree. This creates a repetitive and unbalanced movement all day long, making the body crooked in the process. Anything like Yoga is great, but generally I like to stretch where I feel I need it the most. Below < you will some stretches I thought were appropriate for this "sport", but I would suggest you pay attention to your body and stretch out the muscles that are hurting you the most. If you do not balance out your body by stretching and counteract the bottling, you may find yourself with permanent back pains or a contorted shape. Not to mention that things may add up too much and cut your season short with excessive pain. If in pain I would always stretch before planting, and often during bagups. Although you can overcome the pain with the adrenalin you generate while planting, I see how planters who dont stretch become increasingly disfigured and in pain over the season.
< show wrist stretch and talk about tendons like long strings stretching through the body..
I recently heard of a tale of two bimbos who thought they would be so smart as to bury 4 trees under every tree they planted, and skip entire areas (probably the tougher ones), figuring that if the company saw trees in some areas, it would assume their entire piece was successfully filled. Well, this industry is an old one and there definitely exist quality control procedures to uncover such cases.
The quality check is performed using a plot <bm> , which you create by randomly sticking your shovel into the ground somewhere and check all the trees which have fallen within an 8 foot radius of that shovel. First the treeplanting company's checkers or foremen check your trees, but then the forestry does the same, according to "pay plots". The location of those are not random but prescribed beforehand according to prescribed procedures or GPS coordinates.
Each tree that lies within a plot may be dug up and unearthed to make sure that the tree has been planted properly. This usually means a straight and vertical plug, planted at the correct depth and in acceptable planting medium <il> (the right soil). The root shouldn't be damaged or torn by the shovel, but the degree of strictness depends on the contract or forester. The expected number of trees with their spacing depends on the contract and conditions, but generally they want around 8 trees per plot, which translates into a spacing of 2.5 metres between trees. But because it is not a perfect world but one filled with dead logs and all sorts of other slash < , you are allowed to plant up to some designated "minimum spacing" < , such as 1.5 metres. But even given such leeway with spacing, a large amount of slash can result in less "plantable spots" < than the prescribed amount. For example, there might be only 6 plantable spots available in a presribed plot of 8 trees. The checker can assess the plot and deduce that there less plantable areas. |
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However, in such cases you would be expected to plant your trees closer together, such as 1.5 metres apart, so as to squeeze in as many as possible. It is a numbers game as many trees can die and they want to have the biggest bang for their investment buck. The logging company/forester chooses the spacing and planting requirements based on the conditions and their experience and research of the area. If, for example, you planted your trees at regular spacing in a slashy area, you might get graded "5 trees planted in 6 possible out of a prescribed 8". If they dig up your five and one of them is found to be a "J root" (meaning not straight and resembles the letter J), you get graded "4 out of 6 possible", which works out to 4/6 or 66.66%. In B.C. you are generally allowed a 7% margin of error, meaning 93% is a pass. Anything less results in a fine. quality is as bad aS 75% generally results in ZERO payment. There is some complex sliding scale formula, but with only a 7% allowable margin for error, you are generally required to produce perfect trees. Inevitably, it can then become a whining game where exhausted looking treeplanters try to gain the sympathy of the forester, who might then overlook certain leniancies. Other times the forester might demand a replant or an entire area, while other foresters do not want trees pulled out of the ground and damaged, so the fine stays. For "replants" < , the entire crew might be sent to fix and doctor up trees, or the planters responsible for originally filling those areas might be chosen.
If a replant was not permitted or failed, a fine might stick and then be either absorbed by the treeplanting company or distributed in some way among the planters. Generally I have never had to suffer a fine and most foresters will gradually become lenient, or offer some option of a replant.
The plot is created by wrapping the loop end of a pink, 8 foot long plot cord around the handle of the shovel standing in the ground. Your employer will generally provide you with one, expecting you to quality control your own trees. You then pull on the loose end and walk in a circle around your shovel, counting all the trees that fall within the 8 foot plot cord length. Especially as a rookie tree-planter, it is good to occasionally use your plot cord to measure your spacing. You can put strips of duct tape (seems a planter's best friend, as it faithfully serves so many purposes) along the plot cord to measure your prescribed and minimum spacing. Obviously for someone who is just starting, it is difficult to visually guage what 2.5 or 1.5 metres is, or to guestimate how many trees are in your average plot. When I am uncertain or receiving some heat from a checking foreman, I might take several plot readings on a third bagout < , bagging out somewhere away from the cash < so that I could take several plot measurements while walking back to my cash < . It only takes a few minutes and will help you adjust your spacing. If the prescribed number of trees is 8 and you just took four plot readings yielding two tens, a 9 and an 11, it means you have to loosen up your spacing a bit. Sometimes the foreman will ask you to loosen up to seven per plot for a while, in order to compensate for your three bagups of densely planted trees. Other times, if you produced consistent plots of 4s and 5s, you might be asked to go back to your area (always referred to as a "replant") and fill in your trees with more, "pumping up" your density, so to speak. |
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If a cross foreman comes back to your piece and receives news from you that you had taken several plot readings, determined you were still a bit dense and undertaken the appropriate adjustments, they might forgive you a let you plant further without sending you back. The problem though is that the foreman will be communicating occasionally with the forester, meaning that it may take a few days for a certain error to be labelled unacceptable, in which case you might be sent back to your area many days later. For this reason, it is generally advisable to aim for consistently quality trees at the correct spacing, and use your plot cord occasionally (especially as a rookie planter) to measure yourself and perform your own quality control. By producing consistent quality trees, the foremen will generally leave you alone and be more helpful for you, such as by giving you better ground. But there is also the margin game, inching down quality, overusing your minimum spacing, dancing with the checker foreman who dances with the forester, aiming for marginally acceptable tree in order to maximise income. Many fast planters regularly play this sort of game and this is something you will have to experiment with yourself, and decide how close to the line you want to go. For me, with all the tricks I am listing on these pages and moderate physical effort, I was managing 250 dollars a day and respectable trees, for which I was thanked and developed a solid position in the company.
The above mentioned quality control procedures sound quite impressive, dont they? You would expect an industry this old to have developed a solid and systematic approach by now. Unfortunately, from the perspective of a lowly planter like myself, it appears suspiciously otherwise. For your entertainment I will now rant about this issue and reveal some interesting stories.
As I have already mentioned, I planted for 6 seasons/years in a row, took a 17 year break, and then planted a seventh year (more may follow). I therefore have experience over a 20 year period. Even when I was planting 20 years ago the industry seemed to have its head deep up its arse, contrary to the many decades that it had already been operating. Entire mountains would be logged and then replanted with pine - the original tree. But because the entire mountain was stripped of trees, which naturally consume water and their root structure helps keep the sloping soil intact, the water level in the soil was much higher than before. Meaning that all the planted pine drowned. Two years later they came back and planted spruce instead, but by then much of the top soil had already washed away. Once I was on a helicopter show < and the flight up to the top of the mountain and along the rainy coast was fantastic. But one day the cloud cover was thick and the chopper could not pick us up, so we had to walk down the mountain to a truck waiting for us at the bottom. We walked along the logging road hugging the side of the mountain but were amazed when it abruptly ended. Standing on the edge we looked at a large empty cone shape which had replaced the mountain ridge the road was bending around, and saw a massive pile of rubble poured into the valley below. A third of the mountain had just washed away. So over time the geniuses at the top would clue in that such large scale logging can cause unwanted ripple effects in nature and they would make the appropriate adjustments. Like sometimes I would plant alder in the sandy landslides developing under the logging roads criss crossing various horizontals of steep slopes. |
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The alders grew and rooted quickly, hopefully stopping the sandy landslide from spreading and getting larger. The logging roads apparently cost a million dollars to build a kilometre up in the mountains. They would often wash away and be unusable by the time they sent us in to treeplant, and hence the need for a helicopter. Other times the choice large and old growth trees were only to be found at the very tops of the mountains, the rest having been already logged. Since it was uneconomical or impossible to build a road that high, they would just chopper out the last remaining old growth forest and drop them in a lake below. The greed and insatiable thirst of whiteman has no borders. As chief Seattle of Washington first said when Euroman first hit the shores and started devouring nature: "After you have cut the last tree and consumed the last rock, you will realise that you cannot eat money."
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There are many sad and bewildering tales of exploitation by the capitalist greedy, but the government's management of the industry can be equally amusing. For this I would like to make an analogy to communism, having spent some time suffering under a bureaucratic Czech government. The system of government involvement in this industry may be typical of the inefficient bureaucracy governments seem famous for across the entire planet. 20 years ago I remember how most foresters frothed at the mount in exclamation of the importance of screefing large areas around the trees. Apparently the top soil had to be removed for a square foot around the planted tree so that the sun could heat up the soil and make the tree feel nice and toasty warm. Now they prefer no screefing, "mimicking nature" the conclusion their genius came to. |
In the past there were tales where the foresters would walk around with a one foot metal square dangling from a string. They would drop this square around the tree and demand that all top soil within it be removed. For my last year planting I had the benefit of planting on two contracts in the same area. One was for a private company and the other for the dreaded ministry. For the private contract (I usually find that private enterprise is more on the ball than the government) we were told we could plant in almost anything - even red rott < . If there was no other choice than we could plant the seedlings in loose twigs, as long as they were a bit wet (although half the days it was raining, so this requirement was absurd).
Then we moved to the ministry contract and memories resounded of similar contract 20 years ago. There seems to be an army of pencil pushers at the top who like to draw on the computer and play with Excel files, creating neat little specifications drawn from their textbook studies. Little do they consider that most treeplanters are intelligent students who also know how to memorise textbooks. After seven years of planting and experiencing a broad range of contract specifications, I feel I have developed a sense for the trees requirments. For example, on this ministry contract, they were very strict about the exact depth the trees were planted at. But they seemed to ignore the fact that the distance between the top of the plug < and the laterals (the first branches) was an average of 2 milimetres. How do they expect us to plant more than 2000 trees a day with such a small margin of error? Let us analyse this more deeply <show pic> . The plug is made up of roots surrounded by juicy soil, filled with special growing nutrients. A "shallow" plug is a great concern in the industry, as they believe that the top of a plug exposed to the raw elements will lose all its moisture. But sometimes the medium in which we plant is quite similar to the soil wrapped around the roots. Could not the surrounding soil also be sucked dry of its moisture? Then we have the natural layer of moss, roots and vegetation which would be left on top of the soil (remember, the new strategy is now to mimic nature, and hence leave the "duff" layer intact). Could not this thick and moist layer of moss help protect and cover the top layer or this sinfully exposed plug? |
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Meanwhile, they also scream that the laterals <id> should not be covered or hindered in any way, as the duff layer will apparently slow down and stunt the trees growth, which is trying to burst out of initial covering. Instead of giving us some leeway, they were very strict and were forced to go back and "doctor" up the trees. Check that they are planted at the exact depth.
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To do this we had to scrape away the duff layer to see exactly how deep the tree was planted. If even the smallest area of the top of the plug was not covered by "designated medium", we either had to shove it in deeper and cover it up, or push over a bit of acceptable dirt to cover it up. Of course, for political reason so that the forester could see we actually did go through the area doctoring, you would leave the surrounding area uncovered. Hence nature was no longer mimicked and the entire initial specifications were overruled, for the purpose of aesthetics and politics. |
On a later contract the forester was convinced that the plug had to be so straight, that even the slightest bend at the very end of the plug would result in a malignantly deformed tree. In both cases, the situation was mostly resolved by the foreman respectfully asking the forester how they propose we produce such an imaculate tree. In both cases the foresters were not able to duplicate their requirements. The first one even slid the tree into the ground on the wrong side of the blade, and spent minutes struggling with each tree. All six of his trees were shallow. In short, it is a bunch of pencil pushers and textbook gweebs at the top who like to look at pictures and produce neat little tables of specifications on their home computers.
My favourite case I watched once planting in the middle of a large cutblock. I was on the edge of this expanse of cleared forest watching two guys with two horses and one truck thinning out a forest. They would carefully select which trees to log (one strategy is to cut the smaller ones and let the larger ones get larger; the other strategy is the opposite), cut them at a specific angle so that their fall would not hurt other trees, the horses would pull them out onto a small road, where they would be loaded onto the truck and carted off to the nearest mill. One would drive the truck while the other would continue cutting and hauling the trees to the road. The forest would be thinned of trees, such that the remaining trees would have more water and sunlight, and be able to grow faster. A forest would remain, and the remaining trees would seed the rest of the forest, so no treeplanter would even be necessary.
But such small scale production is not as profitable as logging roads weaving horizontally through a mountain side, immensely large tractors rolling along these roads with a crane a wire hanging along the slope to the next tractor below. Between these tractors and along the wire between them would run some pully system which would effectively scoop up the fallen trees like toothpicks on a blanket. Other times a massive machine would grab 8 trees at once, crunch them together while a massive blade would slice the bunch of them at the stump level. The big arm would then bunch the trees together like the grip of the shovel handle in my hand, twist the bunch horizontally and load it right away in a waiting truck. A rapid extraction procedure with the greatest profits. |
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In exchange for this environmentally devastating procedure the government would hold out its palm to these multinational companies and ask for a mere 10 dollar (rouugh average) stumpage fee, with the promise that the logging company must plant one surviving tree for every one that it chops down. And hence we can define your average Canadian who carves out their living by letting others rape and pillage their (stolen) land, preferring not to have to work, if possible.
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I remember the ministry forester had came to me at the beginning of the contract, explained to me his ridiculous specifications, and then asked me if I had any questions. After the entire crew had spent an entire day doctoring up the trees in the ridiculous political fashion that we did, I realised I had a whole flood of questions and hoped I could run into that same forester that day. Needless to say, the last place he would want to be that day is on a block of replanting treeplanters, but my questions might be the following: Do you use some systematic approach to testing and verifying your various theories regarding tree survival? Do you, for example, tag a tree which has been planted in a certain way and in a certain medium and record the tree's growth, inputting the information into some database so that the researches and textbook scribblers can formulate their theories based on reality and not so much on guesstulation? |
Why was it so important to screef a square foot twenty years ago and why is the opposite absolutely important now? Do we have to always deal in such extremes and cant we use a little common sense? Over the past two decades, could not have someone in the ministry picked up the phone and called the seedling company, "Hey guys, do you think it would possible to produce higher stems on your trees? Quite hard to plant trees according to our strict requirements."
But hey, the treeplanter can easily be perceived as at the bottom of the totem pole. With pierced noses and other bodily parts, tattooes, messy hairy, muddy faces, independent attitude, and especially, "How dare can these people earn so much and still complain?!", why should anyone listen to the opinions of such people? It is degrading and insulting to the paperpusher, who might envy the thought that the treeplanter is saving up for a medical degree and may actually be more intelligent. And hence the entire communist and bureaucratic system with a strict top-down command system. Never down-up. The ministry forester proceeded to instruct the treeplanters how to go about their treeplanting jobs. Someone calculated that the combined experience of the eight of them would equal roughly 40 years. Compared to zero by the forester, who planted every tree shallow. |
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But who am I to complain. Don't I wipe my arse with the same toilet paper?
< planting higher numbers, especially if quality trees, can get you more favour (higher profits, less hassle, can cover large areas)
< explain somewhere how, by law, the logging company is required to replant every tree that it cuts down.
< planters collecting UI, 1 dollar extra for every two earned, mining and other industries paying dopeheads large amounts of money to get into the interior, survive tough conditions and rape the land
Like verments<termites in an attic, we fill out empty blocks, which have been stripped of their trees. The Native Indians First Nations Peoples, as they collectively take on contracts too, like to start in the middle of an area and plant outwards like dew drops spiralling out of a snail shell. In typical adventurist<.. whiteman barbarian fashion though, we create square blocks starting from left to right. Empty blocks are usually sectioned up by roads or paths, from where harvested trees were carted off and easy place to make tree cashes <il> . You'd set up your stuff at the cash and load up trees. Typically a forman would tell you where you will be "cutting your piece", pointing some direction from the road or path.
To cut your piece, it is polite to make it nice and visible for the next planter <beef up key words> , who will be cutting the piece next to you and planting off your trees. Some of your placed ribbons should be long, so as to be seen from a distance. If the next planter cutting a line can see your line while cutting his, it would avoid such occasional nuisances as getting a very wide piece in the back and eventually having to walk over many trees to get back to an open area.
Hence the first ribbon can be high and long as well. I like to leave a ribbon every three trees, depending on how visible the trees are to the other planter (height and size of seedling, surrounding bushes and high grass). You can plant a strip two to three trees wide if planting through a lot of slash <ild..> , but keep in mind that you do not want to fill it vertically too quickly. Depending on the shape and conditions of your piece, it is sometimes better to bagout < at the back, where you were filling in your piece parallel to the "front" (that part closest to your cash) of your piece. Otherwise, it is advisable to bagout close to the cash. If possible, just plant a straight and single line. If planting more than one line, you could drop or tie up a flag/ribbon whenever in the inside line, trying to stand on your line, to keep it overall straight and easier for the other planter to follow. In the beginning you could have a target, which you can select when the foreman points which direction you should go. Whenever you are ready to drop a tree, you can make sure you are standing on your line by looking back down it, turn around a find your target. Obviously the degree to which you want to make it nice and easy for the planter on the next piece depends on to the degree you want to be courteous. Planting a single line is easier because you can just barrel straight through and occasionally look up ahead at your target.
< make illustrations..
Once you have cut your piece, you can pretty well fill it as you wish. I like to cut along contour/horizontal lines if in a hilly area. If there is a massive long slash cutting into your piece, just fill in one side first. Try to cross as minimum slash as possible, and utilise your minimum spacing <il, or ild??> . I'll often stare at my piece for a second and develop an overall strategy before embarking. Some times it is better to line plant while other times it is better to area plant <idl for both> . Some slasy corners of my piece might be better area planted, while the rest line planted. I can create a map in my head, but apparently some can't visualise so easily. If I choose to area plant an area, it is better to plant according to some easily visible landmark, such as the horizontal contour of the hill, a treeline or a road. If your trees are big and visible you can just space directly off them, glancing at "the line" from time to time as you race forward like a horse. Other times it may get a bit slashy and you plant more haphazourdly, creating a thicker single line while planting in the easy and creamy spots <idl> . One highballer suggested planting almost two trees wide. About one and a half wide, occasionally glancing for your line. If it disappears you can bounce back and fill the small space, or wander back towards the line and plant slightly tighter for a while, compensating for the wider streak just before you. You are not expected to produce perfect plots <il> every time, but you want to aim for that, to avoid having to replant <ild>.
Usually I do not plan so much but react on given micro areas. If you do decide to line plant a certain area, I find a nice straight line can get you into a fast rhythm, pounding in one tree after another without looking for your next spot. Sometimes I'll take greater pains to keep the line as straight and as long as possible, such that I might walk over a few trees rather than around them (see some examples here < ).
Regardless of which areas you line plant or area plant, it is generally better to fill from the back forwards, if possible bagging out <id> at the cash <id.. - all cases?> . If my piece is long and narrow, I may just have to walk into the back of my piece and not plant my way there. Other times, I prefer to walk to the back when my piece is so slashy that I prefer to area plant rather than try to plant a thin line, even if three trees wide, to the back. When I area plant <bm> , I tend to bounce off things while maintaining a general direction. The slashier the ground the wider I seem to plant. It doesn't really have to be an even bar of five trees wide, for example, but as long as you bounce off either slash or a planted tree, you should eventually fill in your fully. Think of it as a PacMan <el> running through a maze gobbling plantable spots. You bounce off the maze walls but always turn back when there is a choice to turn left or right. |
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If I find myself in a clearly defined area surrounded by unpleasant obstacles, I'll make sure to fill in that area first, filling it in so that my last tree is at the point I want to exit the area from (most probably the easiest part of the boundary to cross over). Once you get out of that slashy area you can go left or right, but always plant along the slash you just left from.
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This way you will not leave any holes <id> . Sometimes there could be some plantable spots in a very difficult place to get to. It is up to you to decide whether you should go to the trouble or just use "oops, I guess I missed it" as an excuse. When in my larger and contained area, I could area plant micro areas within it, planting the micro areas as patches and filling in the larger area one patch at a time. But always choosing the next plantable spot to avoid as many obstacles as possible. Essentially you would always "traingulate", creating a triangle with your last planted tree, the tree you are presently planting, and the tree or slash you are planting "off" of. Usually you would want to plant as close to the slash as possible, unless the slash was narrow and doing so would result in you planting too close to the tree planted on the other side of the slash. When planting up to slash, assuming it is not too narrow as suggested in the previous sentence, you would usually want to plant as close to it as you (comfortably) can, with minimum spacing <id+l..> between the trees planted along the slash. If the slash consumes half of a plot area, the checker will see that you had no other option than to squeeze them in where you could. But this definitely works to your advantage, considering that you can take less steps between trees. Which is why I often find myself planting a "run" <bm?..> along a long piece of slash. By slash in this sense we can define as anything that we cannot plant in - including ponds, marsh, tree lines and so forth. Marshy ponds can be fun if little tenticals of water jutt out from it, as I like to plant my minimum spacing along all the tenticals like on an interesting adventure. Or perhaps you might find yourself approaching a big clump of young alder and bushes. |
You dive in, weaving between all the bushes and trees like thread and needle, and once you've planted the jungle clump and find yourself on the outside, you can plant a circumference of trees around the clump, hence creating a border around it. If the clump is large enough, you'd probably remember how you planted it, next time spacing double distance from the clump because you know that you had already planted around it. I use little tricks like these to avoid flagging, or just to get into a quick groove when you can pound in a bunch of trees quickly. Catching a rhythm can definitely have its advantages and many planters plant while listening to music.
When exiting an area contained by slash, I'll plant my trees to indicate that I've completed that area. Other times I might drop a flag/ribbon to indicate that, if I feel it is necessary. As a rookie, you may find yourself ribboning your trees frequently, until you are better able to see them. Other times I've noticed much faster planters than I often ribboning where I would not. You can learn to do it quickly and you have to calculate which is faster: ribboning more freqently so that you can more easily see where you've been; or save time not ribboning but occasionally find yourself standing and staring, bewildered and lost. And whether you line or area plant, always keep an eye out for the "best plantable spot". Or creamy spot. Go for the creamy spots first and then fill in the occasional tree into the harder (roots, tougher soil, obstacles) stuff, to get your correct number of trees into the plot. A Creamy <bm> plantable spot is one which is relatively much easier to plant in compared to the surrounding average. Therefore, whenever you see some of these 'faster spots', bang in your trees at minimum spacing, and then space off those trees in the harder stuff at wider spacing, to fill up the plot with required tree number. You will learn about faster spots or ground as you prod around with your staff and attempt to muscle it into different mediums <ild> . |
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But if I were to try and help you now, in writing, I would describe it as:
- the nicest soil seems to have a thin layer of moss <h> growing on it. Light to dark green indicates a moist sandbox.
- between the thick roots of a stump <h> you'll often find a nice pocket of soil, although in some grounds these pockets dry out too much, develop air chambers (which dry out the seedling plugs and what most foresters try to avoid), or may even contain bee hives.
Other times, I feel I have developed some zany <skill> to sensing where is the upcoming best plantable spot. You feel it and just go for it.
<put somewhere else> But the degree that you "go" for it, meaning how hard and confident you want to be during your next slam, depends on the general ground. If it is more rocky, you will want to let go pressure of your shovel D handle, otherwise it will send a powerful shock, up your arm and into your entire body, and most likely soon lead to tendonitis <il> throughout your arm.
< best plantable spot!! while area and line planting
< other planter can plant straight down along your line, bordering their open area so to speak, if they feel more comfortable planting off their own trees.
< plotting yourself, quality control
This researcher <il-to ext link..> goes into greater detail about suggested exercises. One planter said she tried it and it didn't seem to help her, arguing that the movements of treeplanting are so specific that you cannot prepare for it, but I believe that building up your legs and arms could never hurt. I would suggest lots of pushups and dips, and lots of walking up and down stairs. Developing these muscles while planting will only cost you lots of money over the season. Treeplanting does not seem so cardio-vascular, so I wouldn't bother jogging but save something like that for the stair climbing. Squeezing a tennis ball and exercising your wrists could also prove useful.
Also, take the GSM <.. pills for your joints starting three weeks prior to planting. The joints are the most strained and vulnerable, and can shut you down completely from days to weeks.
< put in contact link, clean up html
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