You have checkers from the forest service (gov), the forestry company that cut the timber and your own treeplanting company. They use stats and gps and survey every block by throwing 3.99m plots randomly about. Inside that circle they need to find 7 or 8 trees all well planted. You need a certain percent to be expected to live, high ninties of percent, or your piece rate per tree gets reduced. They check for lean, depth, spacing, microsite selection, root placement and other things. Quality is constantly a worry and I would get checked at least a couple of times a day.
Two or three years after it is checked again and will be scheduled for fill planting if it doesn't have good enough density.
You improve your speed a lot at first. 100 trees your first day, 1000 by the end of your tenth day. Meanwhile vets are putting in four thousand on the same ground at 12 cents a tree. Definitely pay your dues and a company won't pay you minimum wage top ups for very long.
It takes about five or six seasons to reach your peak in terms of knowledge and skill. Some would argue longer. There's efficiency of movement, controlling your emotions and mental aspects, reading the ground and spacing in triangles instead of straight lines. Not many planters get to triangles. There's also different ground to learn. Trenches in Alberta vs steep snarpy old growth blocks on the coast are completely different worlds. Coastal planting is hard to get hired for, mostly older lifers, interior you'd find many students on crews.
Everyone gets minor injuries and sore nagging pains that steadily get worse. It's often just a matter of how many days you last before you quit. Seasons can last from twenty to a hundred days, probably fifty is the most common. Being in good shape or even a little pudgy at the start helps but it's more a matter of pain tolerance and being able to set those thoughts aside and tune it out until you are numb to it. I came back to the truck one time with a three inch piece of stick jammed an inch in my shin. My pants were ripped, leg all bloody, didn't even notice it.
Like coding there's 10x planters too. They are called high ballers. Typically they are more fit but they still come in all shapes and sizes and male and female too. A top planter can make almost twenty grand CAD in a month, reliably 10-15k.
It's a great summer job, you meet genuine people, you learn a lot about yourself. It can fund a lot of travel or other adventure the rest of the year if you play it right. And there's others that would say it was the worst x weeks of their life.
Two or three years after it is checked again and will be scheduled for fill planting if it doesn't have good enough density.
You improve your speed a lot at first. 100 trees your first day, 1000 by the end of your tenth day. Meanwhile vets are putting in four thousand on the same ground at 12 cents a tree. Definitely pay your dues and a company won't pay you minimum wage top ups for very long.
It takes about five or six seasons to reach your peak in terms of knowledge and skill. Some would argue longer. There's efficiency of movement, controlling your emotions and mental aspects, reading the ground and spacing in triangles instead of straight lines. Not many planters get to triangles. There's also different ground to learn. Trenches in Alberta vs steep snarpy old growth blocks on the coast are completely different worlds. Coastal planting is hard to get hired for, mostly older lifers, interior you'd find many students on crews.
Everyone gets minor injuries and sore nagging pains that steadily get worse. It's often just a matter of how many days you last before you quit. Seasons can last from twenty to a hundred days, probably fifty is the most common. Being in good shape or even a little pudgy at the start helps but it's more a matter of pain tolerance and being able to set those thoughts aside and tune it out until you are numb to it. I came back to the truck one time with a three inch piece of stick jammed an inch in my shin. My pants were ripped, leg all bloody, didn't even notice it.
Like coding there's 10x planters too. They are called high ballers. Typically they are more fit but they still come in all shapes and sizes and male and female too. A top planter can make almost twenty grand CAD in a month, reliably 10-15k.
It's a great summer job, you meet genuine people, you learn a lot about yourself. It can fund a lot of travel or other adventure the rest of the year if you play it right. And there's others that would say it was the worst x weeks of their life.