By John SchmitzGrow bags, also called root control

bags and tree bags, have been around for decades. While some nurseries rave about their virtues, others have tried them and abandoned them, for one rea-son or another.

Kurt Reiger, owner of High Caliper Growing Systems, a root control bag manufacturer in Oklahoma City, Okla., said that trees grown in a root control bag in the ground can be placed above ground once they are dug.

With proper watering, the plants will start to air prune, creating more fibrous roots throughout the entire root ball. This allows the grower to hold his plants for a much longer time — all summer long and into the fall if need be, he said. The plants will continue

to grow, building caliper and more roots in the bag.

What’s more, Reiger said that High Caliper’s polypropylene in-ground grow bags, when compared to plastic contain-ers, allow for evaporative cooling when moved above ground. This prevents heat buildup and does away with extensive watering to keep plants from burning up.

One of the biggest selling points of High Caliper’s in-ground grow bags is that they allow tiny feeder roots to penetrate the bag and nourish the plant, which does not happen with container-grown trees and plants.

Grow bags in actionOne huge fan of High Caliper’s

grow bags since the early 1980s is orna-mental tree grower Lucile Whitman, owner of Whitman Farms in Salem, Ore.

In her opinion, the bags offer a huge advantage over field-grown stock because almost all of the roots formed in the bag stay in the bag. “You get a huge root system inside the bag,” she said. “When they [dig B&B], they cut off every growing tip.” While the B&B tree “will be fine,” it will take much longer for it to begin growing once it is transplanted.

Whitman, who propagates all her trees, embeds her media-filled bags in the ground in the summer. Grafted trees are then planted in the bags dur-ing the rainy season, in late October or early November.

“One of the reasons we use the bags is that we’re short on water, so we can’t irrigate enough once we plant the bags,” Whitman said. “The bags have to be wet before we get the treelets settled into their new home.”

The next step is to lay two lines of drip tape directly over the bags. The bags are then topped off with “a

▲

Nursery owner Lucile Whitman of Whitman Farms (Salem, Ore.) holds a 4-year-old Prima Vera witch hazel in grow bag, ready to ship. John schmitz

Grow bag proponents say

they offer better root growth,

healthier transplants

Growth is in the bag

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▲ GROW BAGS

generous helping” of wood chip mulch. “And there they sit for four years.”

Trees that have not sold within a given time are transplanted into 15-gal-lon pots, which are placed inside socket pots in the field.

“One of the truly great things [about the grow bags] is that we can dig in any weather. It can be pouring rain,” Whitman said. “And it only takes a min-ute to get them out.”

Because her bags are filled with much lighter media and not field dirt, handling ease is another attribute. “My finished product — at least an inch and a quarter caliper tree that is well shaped — weighs 35 pounds. A B&B tree would be four times that, and a pot would be twice that.”

Whitman said the grow bags that she uses, which measure a foot across and a foot deep, force a good shape. “[The tree] is never long and leggy.”

For shipments going to her garden center customers, Whitman ships trees inside grow bags. But for her retail web-site business, which accounts for about 50 percent of her sales, she places the grow bag inside a clean plastic bag to keep dirt from spreading.

The race is onMyron Kuenzi grows specimen trees

such as northern red oak in High Caliper grow bags. He is the owner of Kuenzi Turf & Nursery in Salem, Ore., and a big fan of the grow bags. “The whole focus is on root development,” he said. “That’s what the bag is doing.”

Kuenzi described growing field stock as a “very important race” to build and store plant carbohydrates. These will then sustain young trees immediately upon transplanting. He likes grow bags because they enable roots to establish “from day one” after transplanting. It doesn’t happen several months down the road, as is the case with bare-root stock that undergoes partial root pruning when dug.

At the nursery, workers pinch off the tap root on germinated acorns before planting the sprouting nuts in propaga-tion pots in the winter. In the fall, the 18- to 30-inch seedlings are placed in 10-inch

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Kuenzi Turf & Nursery (Salem, Ore.) uses grow bags because owner Myron Kuenzi finds they are better for root growth after the transplant. curt kipp

28 MAY 2013 ▲ DIGGER

diameter grow bags, which are filled with field soil and placed in the ground.

After three years the young trees, most of which have a three-year root mass and two-year, top-worked top, are dug and shipped to re-wholesalers and landscape contractors. The nursery also transplants some trees from the 10-inch bags to 21-inch bags and markets them as finished material.

Grow bags’ detractorsExperiences vary, however. Not

everyone has found the grow bag meth-od effective for their operation.

Verl Holden of Holden Wholesale Growers in Silverton, Ore., tried grow bags several years ago for his Baby Blue Eyes™ blue spruce trees, but he stopped using them mainly because retailers, especially on the East Coast, did not like them. “They insisted we take the grow bag off and put burlap and string on,” he said. “They were labor-intensive and just didn’t play out.”

Rick Wells, general manager of Monrovia Nursery in Dayton, Ore., cited transportation reasons for not using grow bags in its operations. “Eighty percent of what we do goes on semis across the country. We floor stack the majority of our loads and the bags don’t stack well. The bags on the bottom get crushed.”

Other growers have complained about the looks of grow bags.

Carlos Olivera, general manager of Blue Heron Nursery in Independence, Ore., said that the nursery used grow bags several years ago. “We found they didn’t fit our system,” he said. He added that he’s heard the quality of grow bags has improved in the last 10 years.

For more information on High Caliper grow bags, log on to www.tree-bag.com or call 405-842-7700.

John Schmitz is a freelance writer who lives in Salem, Ore. He has written for over 40 publications, including the Capital Press, and is the editor/co-writer of Oregon Seed Magazine, Oregon Blueberry Update and the Lookout, a publication for Oregon and Washington Christmas tree growers.

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