Tree Planting and the 50 Million Tree Program
In Spring of 2024 100 Acre Firewood in partnership with Forests Ontario and their 50 Million Tree Program will be planting over 35,000 trees on our property. We are super excited about this planting program and the changes that it will bring to 1334 North Big Island Road. Planting this many trees will have many positive effects(From Forests Ontario):
- Reduce soil erosion, improve water quality and stabilize streambanks.
- Enhance farmland productivity, create habitat and travel corridors for birds and wildlife and boost biodiversity.
- Expand connectivity with adjacent woodlots and provide shelter from wind and snowdrift.
- Increase land value, enrich recreational activities, and improve the health and wellness of local communities.
Planting trees is not only beneficial for the environment but also plays a crucial role in combating climate change. The 50 Million Tree Program aims to do just that by planting 50 million trees across the country. In this blog post, we will explore the process of preparing open fields for the planting of 35,000 trees as part of this program.
The Preparation Program and Tools
Going into this program we knew there would be some work for us as landowners but the scale of this work is pretty large due to the scale of our program - prepping for 60 acres for the planting of 35,000 tree is no joke. We are in a good spot for this because we have some equipment to help us down the path. About a year and a half ago we purchased a Bobcat T76 to help us with a bunch of projects at our farm. The Bobcat alone is not super useful for prepping the fields - the biggest part of the prep is mowing the fields. To help with this we purchased a Skid Pro Open Front Industrial Bush Cutter - this cutter was a game changer around the farm for a bunch of projects but specifically super important for tree planting prep.
The bottom-line for field preparation is all 60 acres of open fields needed to be mowed before the end of September. This mowing needed to be done to allow the herbicides being sprayed at the end of October to reach the roots of the grasses. Killing the roots of the grasses allows the tree planting machines to work through the fields much more easily. In addition to easier planting this spraying and field preparation gives the trees a jump start in their first year.
End Less Mowing...
At the start of September I started the task of mowing all the fields - a total of 9 fields spreading across 60 acres of property. In my head I thought this would take about 8 - 10 hours of Bobcat time... I was wrong. It ended up taking 30 hours of Bobcat mowing time and we are still working through the aftermath of mowing. The biggest left over task is the clean-up of trees that needed to be cut down and either burned or processed into chips with our woodchipper. For the most part the all 60 acres are ready for spraying at the end of October. I learned a lot in this process of field prep:
- 60 Acres is A LOT of grass to cut!
- Our property has some very BIG ASS rocks
- Driving a Bobcat over uneven grass is shockingly exhausting
- The fields on our property has VERY thick clover, grass and trefoil...
Some quick drone coverage of me cutting in the Bobcat: