Young trees are easy to kill. After all, animals, weather, bugs, fungus, and neglect are all doing what they can to take your trees out. Sure, trees out in the forest have been reproducing since forever, but that’s forgetting that maybe one in ten actually lives. When it comes to the trees you’re raising, whether they’re in your yard or you own an orchard, you can’t afford such losses when raising the next generation of trees.

Of course, there are ways of watching out for trees that will protect them, ways that didn’t exist a few years ago and will save an orchard thousands of dollars. Today we’re going to take a look at the Tree-T-Pee!

What Is A Tree-T-Pee?

The Tree-T-Pee (aka tree tpee, aka tree tepee, aka tree teepee, aka tree tee pee, aka tree t pee) is something you might have seen a few years ago on the television program Shark Tank. Its inventor devised removable containers that wrap around the bottom of a new tree and help deliver water. They’re cone shaped and resemble a Native American tipi (which itself has many spelling variations!).

Sometimes a product comes along that’s so useful and solves so many problems that buying it is a no-brainer. The Tree-T-Pee is just such a product. Let’s take a look at how it can help your trees.

Reduce Water Usage

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of the Tree-T-Pee is how much water it saves. Young trees require a lot of water before their root systems are developed, but traditional watering methods at orchards usually lose most of their water to runoff and evaporation.

The Tree-T-Pee changes all of that. By having the water sprayed inside the T-Pee, the water is kept in a smaller area and stays with the tree. This water all heads straight down to the roots instead of evaporating.

The water savings you get with a Tree-T-Pee are incredible! In a test, a citrus tree grower was using about eight gallons of water per day to keep the trees growing. With the use of a Tree-T-Pee, the amount of daily water needed to grow a citrus tree can be reduced to just .65 gallons per day! It’s not that the plant needs less water, it’s that the water the plant needs is kept where it needs to be. That just goes to show how much much water is being wasted with traditional methods!

Of course, when you’re using less water, you’re also using your water pumps less. Which leads us to…

Reduce Water Pump Expenditures

When you use less water, it’s pretty obvious that you’ll need to use your water pumps less. In a 2009 study, the reduced need for water thanks to Tree-T-Pee meant that an orchard or nursery only had to run their water pumps for one hour a day, as opposed to eight or more hours per day. That substantially reduces the amount of energy needed to run the pumps. And when you run the pumps an eighth as much, that also means significantly fewer repairs due to wear.

Reduce Fertilizer and Herbicide Usage

The Tree-T-Pee is all about keeping everything where it should be. First it saved water, and now it’s reducing the amount of fertilizer and herbicides needed to help a tree grow strong and healthy. Traditional spraying tends to spray the tree and the ground between the trees, which just wastes money on herbicides and fertilizers and causes them to leach into the groundwater or run off into streams and rivers. It’s bad for the environment and bad for the wallet.

Tree-T-Pees focus fertilizers and water at the tree’s base, which means the leaves and branches aren’t bothered by chemicals or heat loss due to evaporation. And speaking of heat...

Tree-T-Pees Keep It Warm

Most trees love warmth. When they don’t have to use their energy to protect their cells from cold, they can use it to grow. New trees are especially susceptible to cold. Tree-T-Pees can protect young trees from the cold because the black exterior absorbs heat and raises the temperature of the tree and soil by 10 degrees or more. In fact, studies have shown that Tree-T-Pees can increase growth rate by 30% and encourage rapid canopy development. And with rapid canopy development comes…

Faster Production

It doesn’t matter whether you have two apple trees in your backyard or 700,000 trees across multiple orchards, the goal is the same — you want your trees to start producing as soon as possible. That leads to a tasty apple on your counter in the first instance and millions of dollars in the second. A faster-growing tree means more fruit sooner.

Are They Worth It?

Absolutely! When you run the numbers on the amount of money you’ll save in water, fertilizer, herbicides, and energy required to run the water pumps, Tree-T-Pees pay for themselves in one-to-two years. After that, they’re money (and environment) savers. They can be used again and again, as they can be removed even after the tree has a full canopy.

Tree-T-Pees are incredibly easy to use, and they sell so well because they work. When you use them, you’ll be saving money on water, herbicides, and fertilizer, all the while protecting groundwater and waterways from chemical runoff. You can buy enough for all your trees at one time or by them over time to increase your output. Find out more about the amazing Tree-T-Pee right here!