Raf, have you ever had any problem with root bound with your trees? I bought a few 5 gallons potted trees in the past and I never separated the root either. I just pulled the trees out of the pots and placed them in the holes 1 and 1/2 the size of the balls and covered them to the original soil line. They did just fine for me.
Tony
you’re right-- practices vary with location and circumstances. I am not really big on pruning(whether top or bottom), as am afraid it could be entry points for microbial infections.
i understand pruning is vital for commercial production/efficiency, and may even be prophylaxis against infections(say, ventilation), but personally find it risky
i would rather risk death that may(or may not) occur some time in the future due to root-bound strangulation or girdling, than risk immediate death due to root disturbance/reduction, lol
and as for mortalities, maybe i have had some trees die as a result of my ‘unsafe’ practice, though when looking back and having done post-mortems of trees small enough to pull out of the ground, have to say those trees died of something else.
Well you really won’t know till about 5 years and if the girdling continues they will suffer at that time. Or easily be blown over from high winds too.
I always cut roots a lot and never had a problem.
And as far as the discussion about having wet feet, not sure how that relates to anything with OP?
wish i could do that with any degree of confidence. Especially when anticipating >110F.
All gardening is local!! Yeah we average in the 70’s here. And yes when in the 90’s everything is hurting! I could not imagine 110F Wow! Here we can have high humiidty so 90F with 90% humidity is unbearable too. Yeah your conditions offer no relief for healthy plants let alone one trying to recover from root damage. OK well now your hesitation makes sense.
good for you! 70’s is still winter where we’re at, ouch…
we’re actually hitting 80’s pretty quickly we’re really worried the packages of ordered bare-root trees and budwood will fry on the concrete path leading to our doorstep–if no one’s home to bring them in.
That’s in the summer! Not now! It’s 29F right now.
ok, maybe i was whining about our >110F summers, but definitely not about our 70 F winters 
evidently though, a disadvantage of our location is that most shipments originate from much cooler and more moist regions, so the nurseries there only start hiring workers when their daytime lows become more manageable.
by then, our locale is already close to sizzling.
I can attest from my own experience that having temperate climate trees go straight from cold storage and dormancy arrive to be planted as the weather goes into months of 90’s and 100’s is, more often than not, a death sentence for them. Even the ones that survive the summer may not make it the following year because growth is so meager that they may not have the reserves to get them going the following year.
That’s from a small sample of 15 trees that arrived last June.
this too, is why i am not big on trimming roots(apart from potentially being entry wounds for infectious agents and a huge risk for dehydration), because most of the nutrients(starch/proteins/etc) accumulated by trees during late spring/summer/early fall are stored in the roots, to be used later by the tree in early spring, to produce buds, leaves, and maybe even flowers and fruit.
it is only when the tree’s solar panels–the leaves–are fully up and running will the roots get replenished and stockpiled.
I grow in similar conditions as @jujubemulberry in Phoenix (actually more forgiving – our winters are less intense). I don’t root prune either when transplanting, unless it’s inevtiable – I usually use a saw to hack open a 15gal and as a result, cut partially into the rootball at the side and at the bottom – and haven’t had problems.
As an aside, I also amend my planting holes. Our soils here are clay based and poorly draining, alkaline, and nitrogen and phosphorous poor – the worst combination for many of the rootstocks that many of my trees come shipped on from California, like nemagard or worse, citation. Couldn’t grow any citrus shipped in from California for the same reason, except stuff propagated on Flying Dragon or Volkamerica – anything on C35 turned chlorotic and then quickly died.
I tried backfilling with only native soil when I first started to grow here and despite trying things like deep root fertilization and watering, I ended up with stunted, dying trees. Amended and voila no issues. I guess I could plant in native and then inject sulfuric acid and fertilizer into my irrigation water, but it’s a set-up that I don’t have the time to manage.
So in the end it comes down to rootstock and pre-existing soil conditions as to whether or not to amend.
So much of the time amending is a bad thing but like you we have alkaline soil. There is nothing wrong with a couple of shovels of amendments aka old manure in that kind of soil and I do it regularly. Lately I have been amending the top of the soil with fairly good results but still not as good as if I put the amendments in the hole at the time. A handful of magnesium is a good thing here as well because our soil is deficient in that. The majority of people have less alkaline soil and should definitely not amend. Every site is different and has different needs. Do you have a bucket etc buried with your trees or how do you handle water?
Yes all gardening is local. I have seen areas even worse than what you guys have and amending worked. So yeah not a rock solid rule.
There’s a lot of climates where fall planting is vastly superior, but it’s never seemed to catch on as strongly and I’m not sure why. The trees I put in a cloth pot in the spring and then plant in the ground in the fall seem to do better than the similarly sized trees I planted as soon as receiving them in the spring. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with potting soil vs native soil, drainage, and how much extra care they require in the pots, but I’m also confident timing has something to do with it too.
Here it is just the opposite. The winters are so cold fall planted bare root trees have little success. I tried it three times, and all three died, never again! Someone once said “All gardening is local” yes, it certainly is!
This is one of those areas. That’s why our state Arbor Day is in December. 
There are fewer trees available for fall planting. My understanding is that it’s a combination of Nature and logistics. Shipped trees are usually bare root. The sellers don’t obtain from the growers until trees have gone dormant, been prepped, and shipped to the seller. Winter is arriving in colder areas by then, which decreases market demand. Spring sales work out better for the seller and suppliers.
The trees I received last June were put in root bags, kept in the coolest shady area, and pampered, with the intention of planting in the fall when they would have better conditions to establish. I gave them what was possible without an air conditioned grow house. I knew it was a risk. Still, the failure rate was even higher than I had expected. Most of the replacements arrived yesterday. February is a much better time than June to plant bare root here. December is best.
Yep, I’m figuring for our area, just a bit north of you, almost any time of fall, winter, and spring is better than waiting until our “last frost day”, the way most of the shippers figure it. That’s part of what drove me to the heirloom tree market; the more local smaller tree farms had more choices available for fall shipping, as do the nurseries out of Florida.
in the mojave desert, the ‘tough love’ theory of using native soil caliche as a filler seems to be disregarded. Maybe inadvertently due to the equally important intent of acidifying the earth and increasing aeration with plenty mulch. Visited the university-backed cooperative(UNCE) recently, and walking around there, you’d feel like you’re walking on memory foam… trees are literally standing on compost and wood chips.
Great thread for a new beginner like me to understand the importance the root system, soil aeration, circling.
Below is a photo I came across a while ago, it’s an asian pear tree. They washed away entire soil to see why the tree is not doing well. Can you see what’s wrong with the root system?
Original photo source: http://on.fb.me/1TTByN6
