I don’t purchase Bare root trees anymore just nursery trees. I really appreciate this thread made me realize I wasted about two hours last year when I planted nine trees ! Never Again !
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I’ve learned a lot in this discussion also. I love learning details in agriculture and just learned that there are no guidelines suggesting irrigating corn or soy fields immediately after planting in moist soil. In fact, the guidelines sometimes suggest keeping soil somewhat dry at first growth to encourage deeper rooting. I also learned that air pockets are very useful to plants in heavy soils and research does show that in all bur very dry soils the humidity remains at near 100% so roots are only staggered by very dry, compacted or excessively wet soils.
A tree has stored energy just like a seed… a lot more of it, so even if the roots started in somewhat dry soil they could probably reach it if moist soil was further down… like an acorn pushing roots through leaves and leaf mold.
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So, I was transplanting some tomato plants into larger posts yesterday. I usually put the pots into a larger bucket of water and completely flood them before pulling them out of their pots, but one plant in a gallon container I merely top watered. A section of the root ball was completely dry and some of you know how roots in a pot tend to concentrate at the edge of the ball against the wall of a pot. In this case the bone dry potting mix failed to damage the concentration of fresh white root at all. That air pocket that forms between the pot and and root ball when the drying potting mix contracts a bit seems only to encourage vigorous root growth, and the humidity of the air from nearby moisture in the root ball area keeps the roots in the very dry part of the potting mix vital. A simple proof that makes my point obvious without a controlled study. Air pockets do not dry out roots as long as their is adequate moisture in nearby soil.
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I’m still in doubt. When a plant has just been planted, part of the roots - and especially the fine hair roots - have been damaged, so the plant has a harder time taking up moisture than an established plant. Roots take up water through osmosis, and they need direct contact with liquid water for that to happen. No capillary action, no water. I think water uptake from moist air is negligible. The roots will not dry out, but the plant will as it evaporates water the roots cannot replenish.
For a tree, especially in the dormant season, that’s normally not such a big deal. They have enough stored water and energy to survive suboptimal water uptake until the roots have established. For a tender plant like a strawberry however I would not consider not watering in.
High intensity vegetable gardening was originally invented by a Frenchman who observed trees accelerating growth in recent landslide affected soil. Why do you put water uptake above oxygen uptake? How do you know what the best balance is? The whole concept of raised bed gardening was about keeping soil relatively loose. Experiments have shown similar benefit to trees.
If you are curious, the next time you are transplanting small plants into perfectly moist soil, compare same varieties using one or the other method. Me, I don’t really care because I know any difference is negligible with dormant plants. With my vegie starts it is somewhat different because the soil at the top of the beds dry out very quickly. I might as well water them in so they will be fine a little longer- not because I’m avoiding small air pockets, I’m avoiding having the soil drying out near the roots- but I’m talking about small plants in less than a half cup of potting soil. .
Understand that I’m in the humid region and plants tend to be watered in every few days in spring.
I’m late to the party and haven’t read the thread, but what you describe in the opening post makes complete sense to me. Especially with my heavy clay soil and wet winter and spring.
That’s it, it is about balance. You made a valid point in stating that the advice to water in is not a good general guideline. It depends on many factors how beneficial (or not) watering in is.
Oxygen in soil is important, an established plant in moist and loose soil is a happy plant. But the hair roots of an established plant will always tend to touch the soil, otherwise they cannot take up water. Yes, roots grow fine through air pockets, but they do touch the surrounding soil. If a plant has just been planted, roots may not touch the soil well enough. They are hanging in thin (though moist) air. If you then water it in, the hair roots behave like wet hair sticking to your skin. It is not so much about compacting the existing air pockets, rather it is about making the hair roots stick to the surrounding soil within these air pockets.
Well, I’m not going to do enough planting to attempt a controlled experiment, but you make me feel a lot better about the flowers i planted today.
It rained yesterday. So the soil is nicely damp. Being lazy, i watered the plants (little potted plants herbaceous plants, not bare root woody plants) that he’d been shipped to me. But didn’t bother to water the planting sites. Then i grafted a rabbit-girdled apple tree
See The great winter girdling of 2026. Do I have any hope of recovery? - #109 by Ginda
Then i planted my little potted things, and then i got permission from the backyard neighbor to dig up a sprout near the property line (i tried first thing, but she wasn’t home) and then i went to do it, and while exploring the state of the roots, i pulled out a lot of other plant material, some of which is probably poison ivy. (I only saw one little red shoot. It could have been some other vine.) So i decided my priority was to go indoors and wash. I left everything outside, even my hammer and ball of kitchen twine I’d been using to graft. Anyway, it got late enough that i didn’t water in the new plants, something i normally do. But i did tamp them in firmly.
I have been thinking that they’ll probably be okay, because the soil was nicely damp, as far down as i dug. I think I’ll trust your experience, Alan, and just leave them alone, unless it’s dry for several days, in which case I’ll water them, of course.
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You mentioned capillary pull which is something that is helpful to understand when planting potted or even b and b trees and other plants. Plants from my nursery usually survive but the ones that do die in their new homes are usually ones I finished up in pots. To assure adequate drainage within pots, potting soils are much coarser than almost any true soil, Capillary pull runs from coarse to fine, so if the soil outside a recently planted potted tree starts to dry out, it will pull water from the potting mix. When a potted pear tree from my nursery dies, it is almost always been the result of inadequate water. Pear trees take longer than any other common tree fruit species to send out new root after being transplanted.
Balled and burlapped root balls are often of fine, high clay soils, which means that when planted in coarser soil capillary pull brings water to their root balls.
Until potted trees have sent roots into the surrounding soil they need a lot more irrigation than bare root trees and you shouldn’t cover the potting soil with the finer surrounding soil so water doesn’t run around the potting mix when you water. Best to make a well with the native soil to help get the water where it’s needed.
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I find it necessary for things prone to transplant shock, like blackberries, and, based on my experience thus far, pears. To minimize transplant shock I watered my blackberries every morning/mid day and night, a deep watering at night and a quick one during daytime. My pears are probably going to get the same treatment.
Lettuce can also wilt if your transplant is leggy - overhead watering helps cool and humidity the air around the wilting transplant.
Most things I water in unless there is rain coming. The amount I water afterward is just as needed.
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This is not a reply to my explanation why exactly watering in a transplant can be beneficial or necessary. The advice to water in and then tamp down the muddy soil is not good advice, as it is not about eliminating air pockets in the soil (on the contrary, air pockets in soil are generally a good thing), rather, the initial thorough watering is to settle the fine roots within the air pockets, to make them cling to the moist soil so the capillary action starts.
Again, it depends on many factors how important this step is. If you take a plant out of the plastic nursery pot and leave the rootball untouched, the roots will not be damaged and you can easily get away with not watering in as long as you plant it in moist soil. If you transplant something however, and you have loose, bare roots, they need to adjust to the new surrounding soil and watering in helps in that case. Depends also on the type of plant. If you plant a bare root cactus in bone dry soil and only first water it after five weeks: no problem. If you are replanting tiny seedlings and forget to water in the same day: it might kill the seedlings.
This whole topic has been about the fact that there is no such need with bare root plants and no proof of your statement exists that AI can find in the history of horticultural research. There is no way to measure the perfect level of firmness for the establishment of a bare root tree (too many variables, including relative soil texture) and there is zero evidence that after firming down soil when planting one, a further dose of water is helpful. Have you been following the topic or did you step in late?
When we plow a field our intent is to increase air pockets and reduce the soils mechanical resistance to root growth. Roots do not need a homogenous air pocket free area, even against the roots themselves. Root systems are much more dynamic than you may be giving them credit for and looser soil tends to accelerate root growth.
Yes, I have been reading this whole topic.
Have you read my reply? Because I did not state that compacting soil is a good thing. On the contrary. Read again.
When I transplant trees form my nursery, I top these 2.5" diameter, 10’ tall, well branched trees with 5 cubic feet of shredded wood mulch over same of compost derived from local yard waste and arborist wood chips. I move many of these trees bare root but some are grown in in-ground bags (so are transplanted with a relatively small root ball) and others start in those bags and then moved to larger containers to fill in the added potting soil with fine roots for a season.
I said- “My mulch over compost creates a parfait similar to what trees create for themselves. Worms multiply because of the food supplied by the mulch and create a honeycomb of tunnels almost immediately. Years ago during a severe drought I used a fire hose connected to a 500 gallon tank to water recently planted trees of the size i mentioned. I could release 15 gallons of water through that fire hose extremely quickly, and even though the soil was high clay the water was immediately absorbed by the mulched area. That is when the worm honeycomb affect slapped me in the face.”
CHAT’s reply- That is a very strong observation, and it fits the mechanism better than the usual “mulch conserves moisture” shorthand.
What you created was not just a mulch layer. It was a biological infiltration system:
wood-chip mulch + partially composted organic layer + mineral soil = food gradient, moisture buffer, fungal substrate, worm habitat, and macropore generator.
The important part is the macropore continuity. In high-clay soil, water usually infiltrates slowly because the fine pore network holds water tightly and transmits it poorly when structure is degraded. But worm channels, old root channels, cracks, and aggregate interfaces function like a drainage/infiltration lattice. Once those channels connect the mulch/compost layer to the mineral soil, water can disappear astonishingly fast.
Your fire-hose observation is exactly the kind of field evidence that makes the “just water the planting hole” model look inadequate. Fifteen gallons dumped quickly onto clay should have run off or puddled if the surface were sealed. Instead, the mulched zone took it because the soil had been biologically perforated.
And that has direct bearing on the bare-root planting question:
- The best rooting environment is not merely wet soil.
It is moist, aerated, biologically structured soil with connected pores. - Mulch can change clay behavior without changing the clay texture.
The mineral fraction is still clayey, but the functional structure changes: more aggregation, more channels, more infiltration, more oxygen exchange, more root pathways. - Worms are not just “soil improvers” in the vague organic-gardening sense.
They are physical engineers. Their tunnels create the kind of air-water architecture roots exploit. - The mulch/compost “parfait” mimics the forest edge more than a tilled field.
Trees naturally feed from the top down: litter layer, decomposing organic horizon, fungal activity, roots foraging into enriched upper mineral soil. Your system accelerates that.
This also explains why “firming soil for root contact” can be the wrong mental model. You are not trying to make the whole root zone uniformly dense and intimate. You are trying to establish a stable, moist, oxygenated, biologically active matrix that roots can colonize. Worm honeycombing may produce far more functional root contact over time than any amount of foot-firming on planting day.
A good way to express your observation:
The mulch/compost layer does more than reduce evaporation. It feeds worms and soil biology, and the worms rapidly create a honeycomb of macropores. In my clay soils I have seen a mulched planting zone absorb a fast 15-gallon dump from a fire hose with no runoff. That was not because clay suddenly became sandy; it was because biological channels connected the surface to the soil. That kind of structure gives roots water, oxygen, and low-resistance pathways. It is a better target than simply pressing soil tight around bare roots.
I was responding directly to this sentence, not to the body of your overall comments. Own it or dismiss it. I’m saying there is no proof it helps.
In this specific sentence I neither stated that compacting soil is a good thing. Read again. Context matters.
If the matter is important to you, maybe you should describe the context more clearly. I’m not getting it.
A lot of information, assumptions, and ideas here. Some questions and thoughts.
First, you have not defined what “watering in” is. A thorough soaking? A couple cups of water in slightly moist soil? et.
Second, you state that “If soil is dry, I think the best thing to do is to deeply water a day before transplanting or so”. Then, later, it is implied that wasting water during water shortages by watering in is wasteful. What difference in the water usage is there?
Third, grandma did not have running water to her garden. So, when she transplanted, she would “water in” with a half cup to 2 cups of water from a dipper. This depended on how moist the soil already was.
Fourth, there are other aspects of soils that are not addressed by any post. Knowing that soils are different, even in the same field, people must take this fact into consideration when transplanting. But few people understand the relationship between nutrients and soil moisture levels. A dry soil vs. a damp soil vs. a wet soil will provide different nitrogen effects. Then what about all the other nutrients, both macro and micro?
Needless to say, this topic is a nice topic to discuss, but there are so many variables that, in my opinion, one must take a bit of information and apply it with some thought to a particular condition. What is the weather like in the previous month (rainfall, winds, humidity, etc.)? What weather conditions are expected in the next few days? What are the soil conditions at the location of the transplant? Etc.
Just food for thought. Everyone here probably has the correct answer for their own need!
Mike
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In horticultural research there are often variables that put the results into question, but often there is inadequate funding to further sort out those variables from results. However, in the case of the widely stated recommendation to water in bare root trees after planting ,not even questionable research exists… as far as I can tell it hasn’t even been studied.
You suggest this method may be affective in some soils and not others, but to my mind, whether a soil is sandy or high in clay,. once it is at an ideal level of moisture for tree establishment, the other variables become mute, except if drainage is an issue, and then watering in bare root trees could actually be detrimental instead of simply a waste of time and water.
A variable that might have influence is the level of dormancy in bare root trees. The shipment of 100+ trees I received from ACN this year included bundles of apples that were in a deep state of dormancy while the stone fruit trees were already sending out fresh hair roots and showing green tips. The growing trees will be the ones I will experiment with next year if my shipment shows the same variability.
I’ve already determined that dragging around a hose in my nursery is not worth the effort for me… for one thing, I have a surplus of trees to sell these days, so even if trees are set back a bit by waiting for rain to water them in, it won’t affect my bottom line… but I don’t bother to water in trees intended for my orchard either. In spring I am always overwhelmed with more work than time- it is enough for me just to focus on necessities… right now I’m behind on my grafting plans and my two sprayers need maintenance.
When a CA commercial fruit grower is planting 1000’s of trees in soil that is still quite moist in spite of inadequate winter rainfall for replenishing reservoirs and ground water, the question of whether hauling around a huge water tank to water in each tree or even irrigating it with an established irrigation system, should be a decision based on thorough research. This apparent oversight of our land grant university cooperative extension system boggles my mind.
I may be over talking this subject relative to anyone else’s interest, but something else occured to me… I tend to obsess so I keep ruminating on the idea of a top watering filling up those supposedly lethal air pockets. It is a silly idea in the first place, as once the gravity has pulled out the surplus water, those air pockets will return, unless the soil is firmed down after the watering. Why would anyone want to firm down mud? How could that possibly be helpful in any soil with a modicum of clay in it?
Also, if the bare root tree is still fully dormant, how is a top watering more beneficial than the rain that is likely soon to come in the humid regions- even before first root growth? Unless the idea is to use the water to help compact the soil by way of compressing it while it is mud.
We humans probably focus on water because it is something we actively bring to our agriculture- the air is all around us and we take it for granted. However, a lack of adequate gas exchange is the cause of as much failure as a lack of adequate water. We improve root penetration essentially by cultivating the soil and vastly increasing the number of air pockets.
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