Kelsay Shaw, Possibility Place Nursery

When Connor Shaw founded Possibility Place Nursery in Monee, Ill., he grew standard nursery plants and dug them in a traditional balled and burlap manner. Shaw had some survival issues with difficult-to-transplant trees, mainly oaks, and it seemed like an awful lot of soil was leaving with each tree. In the mid-80’s Connor Shaw was introduced to a method of growing designed by Carl Whitcomb at Oklahoma State University: RootMakers. The root bags worked. Possibility Place Nursery’s plants were growing well and its on-site survival rate was higher than ever. The Shaw family, including Connor’s sons Tristan and Kelsay, use the same bag system although the fabric has been updated many times.

Possibility Place’s specialty is growing native trees and shrubs that are indigenous to northeast Illinois, and 90% of their plants’ seed is collected in Northern Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. The nursery also offers native perennials, grasses and sedges.

Kelsay Shaw, a botanist and now one of the partners who own Possibility Place Nursery, is impressed by the flexibility and elasticity of the root mass system and the vigor and fullness of the plants that come out of it. He says that, in their opinion, the root system coming out of the RootMaker material is superior because of its layered structures. He’s tried to compare apples to apples in the container world, so he’s tried other root-pruning containers, in addition to the industry standard smooth-sided pot. Kelsay has found that plants grown in the RootMaker system have far fewer gaps and the pot is more layered with roots from top to bottom. When you pull a plant out of its container and wash off the roots, other types of pots result in a root system that seems more hollow.

“It's the nature of the root system,” he says. “You want something that's more elastic. You need more living root tips and RootMaker seems to produce more of them for a longer period of time.”

When you pull a plant out of a smooth-sided container, you don't get a whole lot of white root tips, he says.

“When you're growing with the RootMaker material, you see a lot of white tips, you see a lot of lateral branching where, with some of the others you don't get that lateral branching,” Kelsay adds.

The Shaws have used RootMaker products since the 1980s. They follow the “step-by-step” process and use RootMaker products at every step. Most of the plants, including their trees, end up in RootMaker Grounder 5-gallons, which prune roots by constriction with specific sized holes.

One way the RootMaker system increases profits at Possibility Place Nursery is by speeding up the growth process. Before using these pots and this system, the nursery would need a full calendar year to grow a salable-size oak in a 5-gallon pot — something 24 inches or bigger. With the RootMaker system, the growth rate received a boost.

“If it's seed in February, it's ready for sale by the 1st of September,” he says. “And we were not able to do that without this pot or this system.”

The RootMaker Grounders also help with irrigation peace of mind. The structure of the container has a base material that allows roots to grow through and ground itself into soil.

“Having it be able to feed itself on ground and be able to pull water from another source beyond our drip irrigation — it matters,” he says. “When you have big trees out in the field, especially big caliper containerized trees, you're not out there losing your mind trying to run down the line with a water truck because you know they'll pull water from the ground. They’ll be okay.”

Herbicides and hand weeding have long been the two options for managing weeds in nursery containers. In recent years, however, a new grower-developed technique has emerged and gained significant credibility. Nursery professionals have discovered the benefits of managing weeds by topdressing containers with parboiled rice hulls — a weed management practice now substantiated by USDA research.

Although rice hull topdressing may not totally eliminate the need for herbicides and/or hand weeding, it can reduce both and provides several other key advantages.

A rice hull top-dress of 1 to 2 inches offers the following:

• Prevents airborne weed seeds from reaching the growing media and germinating
• Dramatically decreases container weeds, including moss species such as liverwort
• Significantly reduces hand-weeding labor and expense
• Provides excellent potential for reduced herbicide use
• Helps decrease damage in herbicide-sensitive plant material
• Can reduce drought stress and watering
• Costs just pennies per container
• Provides economical, earth-friendly weed management

PBH rice hulls, a product of Riceland Foods, Inc., are the popular choice for topdressing nursery containers and are currently in use at many nurseries. Uniquely processed to verify purity and cleanliness, these rice hulls are a readily renewable resource supporting sustainable production. PBH is OMRI Listed and WSDA registered, making it suitable for both organic and traditional production. PBH is available in a compressed 50-lb. standard bag or a compressed 30-cu.-ft. bulk bale.

Headquartered in Visalia, CA, L.E. Cooke, previously a garden nursery division, operates on a smaller scale in grafted liner production to nursery trade. The company’s passion lies in growing top notch fruit trees and shrubs for home gardeners ever since its founding in 1944. Propagation trays and containers from Proptek in recent years has helped L.E. Cooke achieve these self-set goals.

“What we have been able to find out is that the entire system works well,” Vice President of L.E. Cooke, Phillip Cox says. “The slot that carries the A pots together is in a 10” x 20” format and sits some of our existing equipment. [The container itself] has windows in the sides that allow roots to grow out and air prune, which forces them to branch another lateral root. It has been beneficial for a lot of reasons along the lines of that.”

L.E. Cooke began using these types of containers and trays a little over six years ago, switching their entire production to focus on these products, Cox says. The products are designed to give commercial nurseries long term financial benefits by having a model that enables greater yields with lower cost inputs. This has been proven especially helpful with tree growth and root sustainability that L.E. Cooke practices.

“We use the shallow container and the shallow tree pot, and we found that that container gives us a good root system on the trees. It allows us to grow a tree that’s just big enough for our customers to transplant,” says Cox.

The multitude of production tweaks made since the adoption this product has been a benefit to the nursery, most notably with watering methods. Cox explains how by using drip irrigation methods, L.E. Cooke has been able to rid of overhead which in turn saves water and uses less fertilizer.

Using Proptek for what is sold, the containers have played a strong role in the company’s bottom line. The product provides a separate flow of income that had not before been realized and aligns perfectly with their brand. This has played a positive role in profitability and led to strong growth overall.

“It’s been beneficial because it allowed for another revenue stream when we haven't had that before,” Cox says. “We toyed with it after building our new greenhouse, growing other items just kind of all worked out together.”

The proven benefits in quality and profit have Cox convinced of an even more positive future for L.E Cooke.

Nursery Management: What can you tell us about OHP’s new herbicide, Fuerte?

Dave Barcel: It’s a new pre-emergent herbicide. In Spanish, it means strong. We’ve been conducting research on it for the past few years and we’ve received federal and state registrations. We anticipate having the product on the market in the third quarter. Fuerte is a granular product and it’s geared toward use with woody ornamentals.

NM: What else makes Fuerte important to the market?

DB: It contains two well-recognized active ingredients that have been on the market, which are the mode of action (MOA) groups 14 and 3.

NM: How does Fuerte help growers save money and increase profits?

Photos courtesy of OHP

DB: The intent of this product is to prevent weed development. If a grower is not able to prevent weeds, he has to send a crew to hand weed the containers. Hand weeding labor costs are extremely expensive compared to the costs of herbicides, and that’s a recognized fact in the industry. Also, because Fuerte has a very broad spectrum — a combination of two active ingredients — it’s effective against a number of broadleaf weeds and grassy-type weeds.

NM: Why is it important to rotate herbicides?

DB: Just like with insecticides and fungicides, it’s important for growers to rotate their MOA groups because it falls under that category of resistance management. You hear about it with insecticides and fungicides much more than you do with weeds, but all weed scientists agree that rotating herbicide classes is important. The classic herbicide that has the well-documented resistance problems right now is glyphosate. There’s a number of weeds that are resistant to it, one of which is Amaranthus or pig weed. In order to prevent weed resistance, you need to rotate your MOA groups with herbicides. A grower should be mindful of that to make sure they don’t develop resistance issues.

NM: How should growers rotate Fuerte in their weed control program?

DB: To the point of herbicide rotation, one product that would make a good rotation for a grower starting out is Fortress, and then rotating into the product Fuerte toward summertime. The reason I suggest Fortress is because it tends to be softer, so on newly potted or younger material, Fortress would have the safety on that type of plant material and then as the plants get a little larger and vigorous, growers can switch over to Fuerte, which has a little more punch to it as an herbicide. Afterwards, growers can finish the year off with Biathlon. That would be three of the OHP herbicides worthy of consideration for a grower to get them through the season.