I’m towards the tail end of the planting spree that coincides with the wet season. This is done to maximize the ongoing rainy season and increase my success rate of plant survivability. However, the weather is so unpredictable nowadays as evidenced for the past 2 to 3 weeks that saw an unusual dry spell in the middle of a supposedly wet season.
To date, I’ve put almost more than 80 plants into the ground over a 1 acre area, ranging from short term to middle and long term fruit trees/crops. Without workers and a ready drip irrigation system, maintaining these are difficult.
I’ve just planted 3 new Mangosteen of the Mesta variety and 1 Cempedak Nangka today. I dug the usual odd-shaped hole that is spaciously larger than the sapling size and just plonked the plant inside. I then backfilled the hole and buried it back with the loose soil dug out before; without even inserting a mix of good soil and organic matter. If you were to do so for one plant, that’s relatively easy. However, try doing that consistently for more than 10 times, you’ll run out of steam.
In fact, interestingly, I understand recent decades of scientific research have proven that planting in a square hole helps speed up root establishment for new plants. The author of the aforementioned article also cited the unnecessary act of backfilling with good soil before planting. Instead, simply backfill with the native soil dug out as this would apparently “reduce the ‘container effect’ on the roots’ behaviour”.
In a nutshell, saplings usually come in round polybags. If you were to open them up, you’ll normally see that the roots have grown into a “round” shape as a result of encircling the inner walls of the poly bag. So by putting them into a hole that is round, the action is merely perpetuating the former environment of growing in a round bag. In sustaining its growth over the years, the roots would continue to spiral downwards automatically once they hit the inner walls of the native soil. This results in a less stable root system as opposed to root networks that flare out horizontally. However, in a square hole, roots that have hit the angular walls of the planting hole would naturally flare outwards instead of continuing downwards.
I’m not about to try this anytime soon but I do find this interesting. I have to admit digging a square hole on hard ground is pretty difficult as it covers a larger surface area to dig. Round hole is much easier for me as it’s less work. However, armed with this knowledge, I should strive to go with at least an odd shape hole that is not exactly round to start with.
