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The Latest Nursery Tools for Landscaping and Agriculture
We’re back from this year’s Equip Exposition, and one of the takeaways was how nursery tools can help landscape and agriculture operations be more productive and fight labor shortage issues. We dive in.
John Janes | Landscaping Marketing Manager
For wholesaler landscape operations, commercial landscapers, and row crop farmers, the process of getting plants from one place to another is often a very manual one, and with labor shortages, things can get tricky. One of the takeaways from Equip Exposition this year is the use of nursery tools to help make this work less labor-intensive and quicker.
Why Use Nursery Tools?
Loading an ornamental tree onto a truck at a wholesaler or readying row crops for sale can be time-consuming work and often takes the manpower of several people to accomplish without damaging the plants. Nursery tools are designed to help by eliminating some of that manpower. This frees up employees to work a different task on the job, improving overall productivity. Nursery tools also help maneuver plants more carefully so they don’t get damaged in the moving process.
Types of Nursery Tools
There are several different types of nursery tools that can help you be more efficient on the job:
- Nursery forks – Compatible with compact wheel loaders, nursery forks are ideal for loading rows of plants. They’re angled to pick up a container or wrapped plant, unlike regular forks. They can also be swept at an angle to clamp down on plants to transport them without damaging them.
- Nursery grapple – Nursery grapples are also compatible with compact wheel loaders and are useful especially when moving heavier plants like trees. The grapple paddles are cut to the standard angle of how root bulbs are dug. They can also rotate left and right or up and down, which is handy when laying trees flat in a truck bed, for example.
- Mulch bucket – For a landscape supply house, a mulch bucket might be a good addition to the fleet. It’s designed with a narrower profile, so it fits comfortably in the bed of a truck without damaging it. These buckets are compatible with both skid steer loaders and compact wheel loaders.
How Might You Use These Tools?
A wholesaler could use nursery forks or a nursery grapple just about anywhere, from moving plants and pallets to loading trees in truck beds. Landscapers on commercial projects might use an auger to dig the proper hole for a plant and a fork to place it in the right spot. Arborists and farmers can use nursery forks and grapples to ready trees or other row crops for shipment.
Nursery tools can be a big help for your job sites, especially if you’re dealing with labor shortage issues. Want to learn more about nursery tools? Check out the latest offerings from Caterpillar.
John Janes
Landscaping Marketing Manager
John Janes has been bringing his diversified expertise to sales and marketing initiatives at Caterpillar for more than a decade. Not only does he hold an LIC certification from the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP), CSP and ASM certifications from the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA), but Janes also serves as an American Concrete Institute (ACI)-certified concrete flatwork technician.
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