JLPN has been in the business of improving the tree seedling and rooted cutting liner for over 50 years, with the sole purpose of providing profit-making trees for our customers. The quality standards that JLPN has in place translates through the life cycle of the tree, by reducing wasted motion and constant management (over-processing), and ultimately increases profits.
Starting with a tree liner that is strong, healthy and vigorous facilitates waste reduction and results in higher profits. Reducing waste in the nursery through purchasing value-added product is key to creating bigger profits with less effort. You wouldn’t temporarily repair a tractor five times if you know there is a one-time fix solution. The same goes for the number of times you want to address a tree during its production cycle with staking, trimming and processing. When purchasing seedlings or rooted cuttings, the tree liner that you invest in has a direct correlation to reduction in time-wasting activities.
Below are some common costs/wastes associated with substandard tree liners based on feedback from our customers. These are all critical guidelines to consider when trying to eliminate wasted motion in the nursery.
Grade Out
On receipt of your liner order, how much of your product, are you having to re-grade and throw away? The answer should be zero, but JLPN hears from many growers, that’s not always the case. Re-grading a tree liner order, for the sake of inadequate size or quality, has an instant negative effect on margins. Seedlings purchased from JLPN are strictly graded by height or caliper for field-growing standards. If you order 1,000 trees from JLPN, you have 1,000 trees to plant, thus reducing waste.
Transplant Loss
When planting a block of trees, the cost to plant and maintain a field (liner, water, fertilizer and care), is the same, regardless of transplant success. The greatest profit is going to be made when you have the least skips, or dead plants, within that block. A crop with a 95 percent transplant success, will drastically increase your profits for the same efforts and cost as a planting a block with high transplant loss. Your prime profit margins come from a high-yielding crop and diminishes with a low-yielding crop. Having high transplant success significantly reduces waste of material and resources, and increases profits for the grower.
Cultural Practices
How much extra time are you having to put into a tree to get it to a sellable size? Attempting to grow a perfect specimen tree from a B- or C-grade plant is like climbing a mountain while walking backwards. You’ll get there eventually, but it will require a lot more effort. Starting with a large seedling or cutting that is healthy and vigorous will result in higher percentage bud and/or graft takes, and stronger growth rate and branching, resulting in more sellable trees that command a higher price, as well as fewer culls upon grading.
“JLPN’s high-quality liners allow us to cut costs by finishing a higher percentage of plants.” – Chris Robinson, Shipping & Inventory Manager, Robinson Nursery in Amity, Ore.
Why Buy JLPN
Our goal at JLPN is to supply products that provide our customers with the finest trees that create the biggest profit margins so their customers benefit from the downstream results. If continual improvement and customer success wasn’t our goal, there would be no purpose in what we are doing, and no reason for growers to stick with us after three generations. Whether you are new to the industry, or a long-standing organization, JLPN can provide plants and services that will contribute to bigger profits with less effort.
For more:www.jlpnliners.com; 1.877.490.7844.
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