Has anyone grown anything in huge pots? like 500 - 800 gallons?

[Lyn96]

 I'm actually thinking of growing sem-dwarf fruit trees in 800 gallon pots, but no one does this. I thought this forum might be my best chance of any feedback. I know some landscapers grow palms in huge pots and am wondering if anyone here has and what they were and how they did and how tall they got and if they got root bound at any point.

I am building 4 800 gallon pots. That's almost 4 yards of soil each. I might build some 500 gallon if I get more material.

Kind of a toss up for me whether to put this in this forum or in off topic.. I can delete and put there instead if it's appropriate. I thought someone growing in large pots might see it more readily here... ??

[Mr. Clark]

I don't but some of the big nurseries down the road have whole fields full of trees in massive pots but mostly those are leafing trees, like oaks and such that don't transplant well when large.  Most palms transplant easy so they don't tend to waste a pot on them, although Biz are often done above ground around here in air pruners.   I think they could get quite large before you ran into an issue, when we dig palms the root ball we cut out is only about 1/3 of a CY.  That said, I have dug out a root ball of a 40yo sylvester we lost and just the core root mass was likely 400 gallons...  since it took 2 yards to fill the hole and that would not include any feeder roots left in the ground.   Here are some pics - tree was about 30' of trunk.

[SeanK]

Largest I've seen is 1/2 barrels.

[Lyn96]

"I have dug out a root ball of a 40yo sylvester we lost and just the core root mass was likely 400 gallons... "

Holy crap Mr Clark. That is a huge dig out. I'm going to hazard a guess the entire closer root system might have been a conservative 8 yards.

Which makes me hazard a very very wild guess that 15 ft is possibly the largest to go for a tree to be comfortable for a couple decades..

What do they do with those oaks and how large are the pots? Do they transport them on semis?

Edited April 20 by Lyn96
add questions

[Mr. Clark]

 

9 hours ago, Lyn96 said:

What do they do with those oaks and how large are the pots? Do they transport them on semis?

The biggest one is https://www.beckertreefarm.com/, check it out - 900 acres - it's a really amazing operation.  The majority is smaller stuff from 15g to 300g, but they have some huge boxes too and have lots of stuff listed to 670g in their inventory. I think they have a few specimen trees in even bigger boxes.  Transport varies - Ours (typically 6-8CT or 12-15 HOA) go on flat beds with support in the back so we can tip to about 30 degrees and stack back to front, I would imagine they also tip them.  That said, they have a 5 trunk Sylvester, that if sold, I can't even guess at the logistics to move that beast.

But back to your original question - I should think semi-dwarf would do quite well in big square boxes, we have some semi-dwarf citrus that is 20+ years old, I pulled about 15 last year and the root mass was not so much that even 400g would have been sufficient.  I also have some Avos going in big rings to get the roots up above the water table.  Not exactly the same, but close enough.  If you build some boxes like shown at the becker website I think you could have them in there for a very long time, but if made from wood eventually you will need a plan to remove and rebuild the pots around them, unless you have heavy equipment handy.

[Lyn96]

Wow. That entire operation is massive. I can't even begin to think what it takes to manage that. And yeah, I looked at that 5 trunk Sylvester and I'd love to watch that being dug up and moved. Thank you for showing me that. If you're moving any kind of big trees then you're pretty massive too. That's a lot of equipment.

There's a company out here in northern Ca that sells and moves large olive trees, but only olives I think.

The containers I'm building are going to be made from a 5,000 gal green plastic resin water tank someone gave me. It was leaking at the valve threads and couldn't be fixed. We cut it up with over 3 ft tall sections of the top and bottom, then cut those in half in order to be able to transport it in a smaller trailer. The crescents are 9 ft long. I'll be sewing the ends on each crescent with the middle section pieces and wire. The material is very thick and heavy. It will outlive the trees I think.

The trick for me is how to make that material look halfway decent. I'll be looking for some kind of edging for it.

Edited April 21 by Lyn96
adding stuff

[Butch]

That's amazing... And I thought my 100 Gallon, 42" pots were big....

Butch

[Mr. Clark]

I think that's a great idea!  I had a 1500g metal pressure tank I cut up a few years back.  The slices made some really epic fire rings. 

Perhaps you could overlap the ends and then sandwich them between pressure treated 5/4 boards with a bunch of bolts run through and through to make a pressure coupling.  That would be much stronger then just stitching it.  For the top, find some 1-2" poly pipe, split it length could be used for coping, (heck, painted and split pool noodles might even work 😂).  You might even find something like Trim-Lok in a size that would work for you.

   Good luck with your project!

[Lyn96]

Hah, you must throw some great parties. 4th of July must be a blast at your place.

I don't think the ends can be overlapped- I think you mean folded around? Closest I can do is some kind of strong "molding" and bolts at the corners. Good idea. Not too keen on PT with food, but I thought of, oh, I don't know what they're called.. very long threaded bolts with very big washers at the ends to go through the entire bed. Tension bolts?  Will have to make the "washers" and bang some curved for the curved side. My friend just bought some planters made out of thin metal and they have something like that to hold the walls up. Maybe they make that threaded stuff in stainless steel. IDK.

Jeeze, come to think of it, that's a very large pressure tank. Yeah, you must have a LOT of irrigation.

Thanks for the suggestions. Some of that Trim-Lok does look a lot like pond noodles... hmmm..

[Mr. Clark]

Old PT was arsenic based, not good to eat...  all current PT is ACQ, Aka copper based.  Copper is a widely used biocide in food production, and is considered to be organic.   

If I understand your plan it is to make round planters?  If so, cross bracing should not be needed if care is taken when loading soil, and until it settles.  The Metal planters need it for the ovals because of the the long sides have irregular pressure, i.e. extra outward pressure in the middle, where as a circle creates uniform pressure and cross bracing could actually deform the shape.  Maybe run some big ratchet straps around the outside to pull it into shape and leave them on for a month or so while the media settles.  Kinda like in my crappy picture...

July 4th in South Central FL is too hot for a big fire, but when I lived in NH - oh baby, we burned some big piles and lit up the skies...  The pressure tank was the smaller one, we had a 10K gal steel holding tank.  Down here I can run irrigation right off the well with a 5hp booster pump, we have 2 artesian wells which put out over 75 gallons per minute each, almost 10K gallons per hour

[happypalms]

It is possible to do so. But it obviously takes a long time, and a lot of potting up. Unless transplanted and then grown in the container.