Every year we plant our beautiful Ambrolauri 2/1 in spring. For us the best solution – a 3-row setting machine, ancient and yet best suited. Often the old things prove to be the longest.
Why do we swear by it? Not only because you are setting faster with 3 rows than with 2 or 1 row, but also because you prevent you from setting exactly on the tractor track. The track always runs exactly between the rows. Thus, the plants are placed in a great loosened soil. This is another plus point that favors growth.
Our planting steps go like this:
PREPARE FIELDS
The rootstocks of the harvested Christmas trees are crushed with a deep milling machine. The material remains in the ground and is food for the next generation of trees.
GROWING A SHORT GRASS WITH OATS
Then we sow a special lawn mixture with oats with the help of the rotary harrow. The oats germinate very quickly and cover the ground first, thus causing erosion. The lawn mixture finds optimal germination conditions in the shade of the oats. If it gets very hot in summer, oats are an ideal source of shade for the Nordmann fir plants. The fresh shoots are protected from the sun.
MAKING GPS TRACKS
As mentioned, we are setting with a very old setting machine – without GPS of course.
But we leave the tracks with a tractor that is GPS controlled. Christopher then only has to follow this track and the Nordmann firs / blue spruces are planted very nicely in the ground.
PLANTING CHRISTMAS TREE PLANTS
The small Christmas trees are planted by hand with the 3-row machine. We have a row distance of 130 cm and a distance of 125 cm in the row. This enables us to produce beautiful large trees.
RAIN OR WATERING
If the weather god is good, the baby fir trees should now be watered by rain. It would be an advantage.
However, if we are not lucky, the barrels are filled and we water our freshly set plants. With the help of lances, we spray the water directly to the roots – where it belongs.
