Shelter Belt Program
| Launch of Seedling and Sapling Sales for Fall 2023 Shelterbelt Plantings for Country and Town HELP International Shelterbelt Program now taking tree orders for 2023 Fall Planting Programs (Plantings should be carried out October 10 to 31 prior to hard freezing of ground surface) Trees will be available for pick up or shipping for SK, MB and AB customers October 9 to 15. Prepare your land NOW! Fine deep till, sink up to your ankles garden texture! Plant deep: Full root plus 2 inches of lower stem underground. Leave a water well depression below the landscape at base of each tree to give each tree up to five times the normal water from each rainfall or irrigation. Slight Price Increase: HELP’s base price for seedlings is $2.50 for global orders of 300 or more (combining all tree varieties). $2.75 for global combined tree orders of 50 to 290; $5 per tree for combined orders totaling 30 to 40; and $6 per tree for combined orders totaling 10 to 20. Please order only in multiples of ten! DID YOU KNOW that in response to several years of drought like conditions HELP is now marketing fairly low cost drip irrigation systems of ½ inch; ¾ inch and 0.98 inch drip irrigation systems for DIY. Find the irrigation systems for sale on line along with our trees at: www.help-shelterbelts.com. For customers who prefer not to install trees DIY, HELP offers on a contract basis: On site assessment and planning services; Shelterbelt Installation Services; as well as drip irrigation installation services. 2023/2024 HELP CEO update Did you ever consider that despite trees being located on your land space, you are benefitting the entire region by producing more oxygen, stopping more wind, enticing more rainfall and creating more beauty and habitat?” 2023 has been an exciting year for HELP International as we have ramped up tree and sapling production higher than ever to meet the ever increasing demand for our trees. Fall Planting It was our organization HELP International who started fall shelterbelt planting on the prairies back in year 2,000. Fall planting is now an established practice for all trees except NOT appropriate for spruce or pine. Trees often do better when fall planted as they access the first moisture of spring! We planted four varieties of poplar on our tree farm in mid October 2022 and put them on drip irrigation only in early June of this year. After 90 days of growing ie: May 15 to August 15 the tiny seedlings are now between 18 and 48 inches in height. These have outpaced seedlings planted this spring. Planting can be done any time from October 1 till hard freezing of the ground surface in early November. Sapling Sales Taking Off In addition to our 2,000,000 seedlings, HELP has increased its 10,000 sapling nursery to 20,000 saplings averaging four to five feet in height ready for fall planting including: Okanese and Tristis Poplar, Golden, Silverleaf and Laurel Leaf Willow. We also have potted Scot’s Pine and White Spruce in the 18 to 24 inch range. More varieties of saplings will be available by spring. To be on the safe side, we suggest you plant our larger saplings while dormant thoughout the month of October OR in late April/early May. We realized unexpectedly high potted sapling sales in our 2023 sapling launch year so are rapidly expanding that niche! Shelterbelt Installation Services Many of you are aware HELP carries out on a contract basis the entire package of shelterbelt tree planting, plastic mulch laying, turf grass seeding and drip irrigation installation across Saskatchewan, Manitoba and into Alberta. Two thirds of all our contract planting clients also contracted us to install drip irrigation on their tree lines. Ask for a quote today for contract shelterbelt installation for this fall or next spring. We typically carry out up to 4,000 meters of shelterbelt installation per day ie: up to four rows of 1,000 m each. An average planting is closer to three rows of 500 meters each. We are lining up so far for fall plantings near Kerrobert, Winnipeg and near to our Weyburn headquarters. Sign up now no matter where you are situated on the prairies! We bring technicians, the trees, plastic mulch film, grass seed and irrigation supply and machinery with you pre-working the land and on day of planting you providing tractor and driver and a couple more things we will tell you about. Drip Irrigation Sales HELP is now selling drip irrigation systems in packages for farms and acreage owners to also install on their own. We are marketing two systems to choose from: The lower cost half inch line with pre-installed emitters at 90 to 100 cm spacing; and the 3/4 inch line which requires you to punch the line at every tree with a tool we provide and install a pop-in emitter (most folks install two liter per hour emitters. We are putting together and marketing packages for both the half inch and 3/4 inch drip lines for the following: 3 tree rows of 100 m 3 tree rows of 200 m 3 tree rows of 300 m 3 tree rows of 400 m 3 tree rows of 500 m Allowing us to make up kits for each of the above allows us to provide a high number of extra fittings and accessories at the lowest system cost in the market place as we don’t have to design from scratch each system for each potential customer. We are going ‘over the top’ with extra drip line, a valve for front and back end of each line, more fittings than required for manifolds and double manifolds and double filters for systems with tree lines 400 m and more. We provide step by step instruction for DIY. We’ll get a video up for instruction. Tree Pricing You will see that our tree seedlings have taken a small price increase. However, if you compare you will see our prices are still the lowest in Canada’s marketplace. A classic example is our carigana and lilac which sell for as little as one third the national competitor price. As a means of keeping our prices down we continue to use a one price system ie: every type of tree seedling we carry we market for one uniform price despite the fact that some seedlings cost us two to three times more to produce than others. Innovations Taking Grip HELP’s innovations and new best field practices are being picked up by more and more tree customers. Am happy to say that the ten inch tooth pick method used to pull trees in their precise location under the plastic mulch film has been successfully adopted by hundreds of customers. The system of manually healing trees after planting to create a water well is likewise gaining big momentum. For those laying plastic mulch film….our newest innovation was tested with extreme results compared to the old system of laying plastic. The new system involves a) planting the seedling b) heeling the seedling. c) take a shallow spadeful of extra dirt away from the base of the tree (about four inches away) d) lay the plastic e) lay a 5 lb stone on the plastic pulling it down in a funnel shape into your spade hollow. f) prick the plastic at the bottom of the funnel with a screwdriver. We photo documented the results. Trees watered only once per month with the depressions/stone/funnels experienced more than double growth rate, zero mortalities and zero yellowing from drought stress compared to trees in the same row without the depressions/stone/funnels. Ask for our photo evidence if you need convincing! Pre-positioning Tree Stocks We at HELP continue to stay ‘a year ahead’ in more tree varieties than ever: We have fall and 2023 tree stocks in place for all major poplar varieties, for all three evergreen varieties, for velosa and common lilac, for green ash, Manitoba maple and American Elm. Customers no longer have to wait for the few varieties of our trees that are produced in greenhouse to harden off. This means that all of the new year’s inventory will have been hardened off and have been living outdoors since the year prior. So, they will be ‘tough as nails’. Am happy to say we have tree stocks sufficiently high enough to market two year olds of many varieties for the price of one year olds. The older the seedlings are in our system the tougher they are in the field. The average height of seedlings is far greater than normal with poplar varieties averaging 18 inch stem size. This is the largest average size poplars we have sold in our twenty three year shelterbelt history. Pre-positioning Supplies Because of supply chain challenges in 2020 and 2021 and dramatic increases in fuel and plastics, we at HELP have been pre-positioning a year’s supply in advance at HELP of plastic mulch film, and drip irrigation supplies. This necessitates a big financial roll out by HELP in the short term but saves HELP and its customers money by keeping pricing at current levels going into 2023. Not stressing about supply chain issues is well worth the bit of extra financing HELP is enduring. Thank you to all landowners, municipalities, government departments, parks and schools across the prairies who continue to purchase trees, plastic mulch, irrigation supply and planting services through HELP International’s Shelterbelt Program”. Rodney Sidloski, CEO and Founder HELP International & Green Research & Discovery Corp |