Hybrid Poplar Tree Factory here in Western New York

I've been trying over the years to establish windbreaks and replace some of the tree lines on our property but always ran into trouble with the deer and keeping the trees alive with heavy grass/weed pressure.

I saw a video this past winter on how, in New Zealand, instead of planting the little 12", 18", or 24" cutting you can typically purchase here, they plant whole 6'-8' (or taller) tree poles out.  



I thought this idea may work to take care of both the deer browse issue and the grass/weed issue.  The trees would be too tall for the deer to reach the branches and they'd start out so the leaves were above the weeds where I plant them.

I had already planted some poplar trees the year before in a nursery area.  This area has fencing and weed barrier fabric down, to grow out in protected conditions.  

I call this my "Tree Factory": A secure area for quickly generating planting stock for trees propagated by cuttings.

The key characteristics of the Tree Factory are:
* Secure: Fenced from critters
* Irrigated: Watered on a timer for fast growth
* Minimized Weed Competition: Permanent ground cover to prevent weeds
* Propagation Varieties: The trees you plant in your factory should be propagated by cutting.

This past spring instead of planting out the typical 12", 18", and 24" cuttings I planted out 7'-8' poplar poles under 3 treatments as an experiment:

* Straight into tall grass
* In an area I recently cleared of old Box Elder trees
* In grass, but with a weed barrier fabric in a windbreak I'm setting up.

Well, now it's October and I have 100% survival rate! and some interesting results on how the trees thrived under the various conditions.  

I made a YouTube video about the tree factory and the experiment, and how the trees did (Spoiler: The ones into the tall grass survived but did not thrive, the other two groups did really well.)

Here's the video comparison and other thoughts on my channel:


I'd love to hear your thoughts.  Has anybody else done something like this or tried planting poles rather than smaller cuttings?

Many years ago, a friend reach up and pulled a twig off his hybrid poplar tree.  He said something like go home and stick this in the dirt somewhere.

We stuck that stick in the ground and when we sold our homestead it was probably 20 feet tall.