Thanks!

if so.. a link to that might help us recall the 'idea' ..

otherwise .... no tree is going to live permanently in a 24 inch pot ...

ken

No, no prior posts.

Thinking pots of 18" square and 24" deep--the trunks are going to be stubbed off at about 18" tall at most, candelabra style, with half the foliage harvested at a time, anticipating three to four harvests per year (1 harvest = half a tree) per plant.

I'm happy to use deeper pots, but I'm limited in surface area to put that many pots.

Suggestions and comments welcome :)...

if you have space for the pots.. why not just plant them in the ground????

how many rabbits do you have????

ken

Don't want to plant my whole place to mulberries, for one--and for two, I'm going to need to move these things around and take them with me if I move.

i suggest you do NOT start with an investment of 100 pots .. especially at 15 bucks apiece ...

trees do NOT belong in pots ... and i think you should try a FEW.. to see where you go.. and how it all works.. if in fact.. as a tree novice you can grow trees in pots .... [and i presume you are a tree novice as no tree person would want 100 trees in pots]

but i want you to minimize your investment .. [after all.. you are on a fixed income ...] .. and see what feasible.. before you invest the IRA ...

its NOT that it CANT be done.. its that it is really hard.. to succeed ... learn how to succeed.. then invest ...

you can buy a lot of alfalfa pellets for your rabbits.. with what you are thinking in investing in plastic pots [and dont forget, or ignore that dirt does NOT grow trees in pots.. and you are going to double your investment in potting media].. which will have little or no value.. if the theory does not work out ... [speaking of which.. many nurseries offer recycled pots for free ... and thought they may not be the form you want.. you could try growing some plants.. w/o the investment ]

i do wish you all the luck in the world.. and hope you succeed wildly ... but i want you to go into it with some concept of reality .....

please do keep us posted ....

ken

ps: when i moved.. i moved 1500 pots.. you suggest such.. and moving 100 pots of trees will be a physical nightmare ... especially if they are filled with dirt .... and not lightweight media ....

When I lived in the Central Valley, I'd say I knew of maybe 20-25 fruitless mulberries that for some ridiculous reason were still pollarded. Don't know if they still do it or not.

Anyhoo, sounds like way too much work in the heat and dirty air for anyone, even me when I was young and dumb and energetic. I'd put three in the ground, making sure their prodigious roots don't ruin everything, and in 4-5 years you'll have plenty of fodder. All the time and money I saved on shading pots, watering, pruning, fertilizing, etc I'd put into a garden.

Just a thought.

Seriously, it is an actual research project through the Rabbit Industry Council, to determine if A) it's possible and B) if it's worth doing. And C) on what scale it makes any sense at all. It takes about three feet of lush leafy branch to actually cut pellet intake by about half for one rabbit for one day; the nutritional and environmental enrichment value is similar to alfalfa and far more entertaining (with less waste than alfalfa hay, too).

Soo...for my own herd of 100 adult rabbits, it would take..hm. 300 feet per day I want to cut pellets down, so to make a decent dent in the month's feed bill, I'd have to use mulberry 2-3 times per week. Total, about 1,000 feet of lush branches required per week for my herd in summer, a bit more when I've got litters to feed as well.

An awful lot of people are looking to raise rabbits with less feed cost (there are times when I wish I had kudzu, but even I'm smarter than to import it!), and many are also renters--which means that you either depend on what's locally available (not much, usually) or grow your own and haul it along.

So...there's your rationale for this apparent craziness :). On the plus side, I'll have plenty of vermicompost and bunny poop to make tea to feed the trees in their lightweight media (thinking Al's 5-1-1 or Gritty Mix from over in Container Gardening).

I generally agree that TREES do not belong in pots. I'd love a field I could plant these in. But I don't have it, nor do the folks I'm checking it out for...and thus, pots it is.

I will be looking into the recycled pot idea, thank you--we have several major wholesale nurseries in the area for nuts and fruit trees, so that should be promising.

Moving 100 pots is no big deal, really...they're short plants, relatively small pots, and after moving 300+ cages and helping people rehearse evacuating their herds...trees are nothing. Really. :)

Overall investment in the trees, the pots, the media...about three months' worth of feed for the herd. If this works as I plan, or even close, it should pay for itself within 2 years once the trees hit about 5 years old. We'll have to see--I'm using a variety of cultivars if I can pry them our of UCD, and will be comparing yield and vigor under these conditions over 5-15 years.