Potted trees vs. bare root

As I understand it, bare root fruit trees get established more quickly than transplanted potted trees. Thus, I'm wondering if when I buy a potted fruit tree, should I remove the potting soil and cut the roots back before I put it in the ground? In other words, should I make potted fruit trees into bare root trees before planting? Is there any reason not to do this? I can't think of a downside.

My understanding is that a potted tree that you would purchase will most likely not be in a dormant state. Bare root trees are shipped to you when they are dormant. Putting them into the ground before they 'wake up' avoids a bunch of stress. I would think if you had a non-dormant potted tree and you exposed its roots to trimming and then planted it, it would be in a bit of shock. I could be wrong, I'm writing off of mostly assumption and off hand knowledge.

i don’t think there’s a good reason to intentionally cut back any roots, but removing soil (especially if the tree is dormant) is totally fine.

Timothy Norton wrote:I would think if you had a non-dormant potted tree and you exposed its roots to trimming and then planted it, it would be in a bit of shock. I could be wrong, I'm writing off of mostly assumption and off hand knowledge.

You are correct. They would definitely have to be dormant. This time of year, most of them are dormant. I should have mentioned that.

It is my understanding that the roots you see are not really the roots that do the work. The real working roots are very fine and hair like. If you have a potted tree and you disturb the root ball too much when planting, you will break the fine roots. Not good. If you have bare root trees, they don't have the fine roots. Really not good. ~My experience is that the least amount of disturbing the root ball, and the most amount preserving the fine root structures, the better off you will be.

I think it's a good idea to break up the rootball of potted trees and separate the roots so they aren't just bound up in a big mass. If the roots are flexible enough, you should be able to arrange them in the planting hole so that they spread out equally in all directions. If they're severely potbound, you'll have a difficult time getting the roots apart, and in that case some root pruning will be beneficial. If you do prune the roots, you should also prune a proportional amount of the top of the plant, so that it remains in balance.

How to plant a potted tree would depend on the conditions of the growing medium of the root ball and the roots themselves. In the best case, if it comes in real soil similar in consistency with your soil and the roots are not bound, plant as is. Sometimes the roots are already circling inside the pot, try teasing them loose and spread them out while planting. If the root bound is really serious and can't be corrected, trimming those roots would prevent choking the tree in the future.

Sometimes trees are grown in the very fine soilless potting mix and the tree has a mass of hairy roots, quite different from the trees growing in harder soil. If planting a whole rootball in the ground, the difference in consistency of the two growing media is so huge that the tree has problems adjusting. Moreover, due to capillary effect, moistures tend to get sucked out of the root ball and the roots will dry out faster. This is an older post I made here. Those trees were removed months later. In this case, maybe it would be better to wash all the peat moss out and plant the tree as bare root. Flood the planting hole so it turns into a mud pile to ensure abundant contact between the fine roots and soil particles. I haven't planted tree this way but have good results with repotting rootbound flowers.