None of the above two make bare root plants “invasive” by whatever ways we could think about.
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I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I’m saying bare rooting is invasive to the plant.
All I’m saying is they’re young plants, and to start disturbing their roots and cutting off and ripping them off doesn’t seem good. I don’t have proof of results. Additionally, it is more work trying to repot it and resoil it. The plant had already dug itself in. Now you have to try to get soil in those empty spaces and re-anchor it. And to get the roots properly spread out. You can’t just stick it in a pot and shove soil into it.
Trees that are kept in pots too long undergo negative consequences as well, primarily root circling. Unless you have to keep the tree in a pot for its entire life, there is no benefit in my opinion to buying a potted tree.
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Yes but plants sold as bare root are young plants and don’t have that big of an issue. When you receive a young potted plant, you can slap the sides of the soil a bit to get the roots pointing out again, during up potting. That’s what I do with figs.
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Potted plant-
super heavy
Too big to ship
Too heavy to ship
Box gets turned upside down and the weight of the pot and compacted soil falls down on the plant, snapping and breaking the main stem.
Root bound- sometimes the roots can get so bound up it’s impossible to do anything with it.
Bare root-
Cheap shipping
High success rate
Uses your local soil
Roots grow and develop free from being root bound
You have to do what works for you. There is no 100% right answer for every situation. Most of the time the vendor or the nursery determines how they ship, and that determines what you get.
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I have a commercial nursery that orders field grown, bare root trees by the bundle wholesale because I don’t have enough land to justify the extra year or two it would take me to get a $10 tree (wholesale). Every commercial grower of common tree fruits agrees that bare root trees are a much better option for starting an orchard than something that comes in a pot with soil- if only for economic reasons. If the potted trees established more quickly I suspect the industry would have long ago adapted to producing and shipping potted whips. Just an extra season of productivity would seem to justify the expense, especially if the nursery is nearby.
It is also becoming an increasingly popular contention in the literature of general horticulture that even larger trees are best transplanted bare root when possible (depending, in part, on the species). When roots are incased in a different soil than where they are transplanted, especially texturally, it creates certain problems related to the capillary movement of water from coarse to fine soils. If the soil the roots are in is coarse, like potting soil it dries out quickly because finer soil pulls moisture away, while rootball soil in BB trees (the industry standard) tends to be heavy, which can cause excess water to collect around the ball. Clay soils are often used for these trees because they create a denser root system and take longer to dry out while sitting in a nursery.
Large peach trees (2" caliber and up) are not even generally available in nurseries because they grow poorly in pots and suffer a lot when losing the amount of roots that occur when balling them up. Some of the bare root peaches and nects I sell include a root system well over 6’ in diameter- try growing that in a pot. Often they transplant without a hitch, but more often they take a year to fully recover transplanting, but it still tends to speed the time to harvest by a couple of years, which is well worth it for my mostly deep pocketed clients. They often have trouble keeping a whip alive.
Potted apple trees do fine and I often see healthy trees available at nurseries for a reasonable, though not great price. Pears suffer from transplanting more than anything I grow, so should also be worthwhile to buy potted. As has been mentioned, the primary problem is the selection. Every veteran member here has a clearer idea of what varieties do best in their region than most general nursery owners.
Incidentally, root systems are dynamic and feeder roots are forming and dying all the time. During drought, roots in dry soil lose all their feeder roots only to regenerate them when moisture returns. Trees dug from the ground lose most of their fine roots, even those growing partially in wire pots holding soil. Without feeder roots the suberin protected larger roots do nothing for the tree. When big roots are destroyed when dug up for transplant or even to fit in a box for shipping, trees are slowed down and you can lose a season in establishment, but such trees had much larger root systems than similar sized trees in pots to begin with.
Strive to buy your bare root trees from nurseries that sell plenty of root with their trees- all other things being equal. Sometimes when you want a special variety you have to take whatever you can find.
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Bare root means not rootbound, among other things. You can see how healthy the roots are. Cheaper. Easier to move around.
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If I am buying a small tree from a mail order nursery, I’d rather pay half price for shipping and get a second tree than pay to ship dirt across the country. That said it depends on the nursery and I certainly have paid for shipping dirt to obtain specific varieties, like KSU pawpaws unavailable as scions. I’ve planted thousands of bare root plants for work and can attest to the ease of planting with a dibble bar vs digging holes for potted plants as well. It’s probably 5x faster with similar results.
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My total experience is only about 75 trees, but I much prefer bare root trees. Most of my bare root trees were cheaper and significantly larger than the potted trees. I’ve had 100% survival on bare root, but several deaths on potted trees transplanted into the ground. On a bare root tree, I can fan out the roots nicely when planting. I can also pick up and transport a dozen bare root trees at a time while potted plants are a problem to transport.
I worry about disease and pest transmission, so I’d rather not ship large amounts of soil or potting material cross country.
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Which is extremely useful in heavy soils. Potted trees tend to have much of the roots on the bottom of the pot at a depth of inadequate oxygen in such soils. Where drainage is a problem I purposely spread roots of tees being transplanted close to the surface.
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@chingchungly I get your concern. It seems like it would be very detrimental to the plant, especially since I think most of us grew up being told to never mess with the roots of a plant. Counterintuitively, there’s not really an appreciable difference in how well a tree does whether bare rooted or potted if it’s cared for properly after planting. If you’re watering a tree adequately, a bare root with most of its roots chopped off can still draw enough water to grow as well or better than a potted tree. Without adequate water, a bare root will definitely suffer, but so will a potted tree. If you ever want to know how much root disturbance a tree can take, watch videos on how to repot bonsai. Bonsai growers really know how to optimize tree health and growth, and they have no hesitation removing 50% or more of a trees roots when repotting.
There’s also a saying that a bare root tree will “sleep, creep, then leap.” That is, it will “sleep” the first year, not doing much, grow noticeably the second year, then take off. I’m pretty convinced this is a myth, or at least applies just as much to potted as bare root. I’ve had bare roots go from 8" tall to 6’ in a single season, and I’ve had potted trees seem to not do anything for a few years, and every possible combination in between. I notice more reliable variation between species, varieties, or even individuals than between bare root and potted.
So the take home for me is that either is fine. Given a choice mail-ordering, I’ll usually go bare root for the better selection and lower cost. But if I can only find something in a pot, I don’t have any real reservations with that, either. The one real downside with potted plants that hasn’t been mentioned is that it’s much easier for pests and diseases to hitch a ride in those. The inspection requirements on potted materials are more stringent for this reason, but things can get missed.
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The problem is that if a potted tree looks like this, by the time you do the required “root surgery” to correct the issue, you have no more root mass left than you would in a bare-root tree in many cases.
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Another point to ponder is ‘what is in that pot’ ? I have been ordering plants/trees/canes for years and in those pots are bugs/cocoons/larvae/diseases/jumping worm eggs…who knows?
Ive ordered from the east coast, west coast, down south, up north…and a few from other countries.
I have learned the hard way to put every plant in quarantine before it hits my soil.
All foreign pot soils get tossed away from my property and roots are washed and soaked and washed again.
Bare root makes all that easier for me.
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Two comments, both of which build on this insight.
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Once a long time ago, I planted two bare root apple trees. A few weeks later I decided that I had planted them too close. So I tried to dig up one tree and move it. To my surprise, the original bare roots had sprouted masses of new white roots. The new roots had roughly 5 times the mass of the original bare (brown) roots.
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Twice in the past 3 years, I grafted apples and pears – roughly 60 trees in total. I used purchased barefoot rootstock trees. In most cases, the rootstocks trees had the most minimal roots imaginable. But not a single rootstock tree failed to grow. Only ~3 grafts failed. By the end of the 1st season, each grafted tree was 4-6’ tall. Evidently the barefoot trees found a way to grow good roots.
I could tell more similar stories, but hopefully you get the point. The tree will do just fine.
p.s. Pruning is arguably also very “invasive” to the tree. But good pruning is critical.
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When you get your hands in the ground and see how roots grow you learn things you can’t really get from books. It is amazing how much a transplanted trees roots can grow the first year it is transplanted, even when the top of the tree barely grew at all.
Same deal, planted trees and a change in plans. When you install orchards for other people it happens some times. But I also move some of my trees from a protected fenced area to my more expansive unfenced area after sizing them up a couple years and finish them off before selling them. I get to study a lot of dug up plants.
Tomorrow I will be packing up about 30 bare root bearing age apple trees to have trucked from NY to NC- along with another 35 in pots or in-ground bags. I expect the bare roots to plug in quickest of all.
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I agree with @alan about dissimilar soils in the pot vs. the native soil interfering with the capillary action of water. I have been known to take potted trees and wash all the soil off their roots before planting, if it happens to be during the season the tree is dormant.
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Another consideration is that potted plants and balled plants sometimes limit the grower’s ability to see whether the root system may have a wrapped or circling root in the center which might constrict the growth of the plant and strangle it as it becomes established. With bare root, those twisted and circling inner roots are easily seen and removed when planting, and then replaced by the plant during the first year…
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Potted trees do not grow in a natural way in the first place.
ALL potted trees have disturbed roots once the roots start touching the pot.
ALL potted trees are root-pruned or have encircling roots once they reach the wall of the pot.