This discussion is what I found on google:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/propa/msg0715413511913.html

 

I think I would try a few that way, but not all of them. Do an experiment and keep some records.

 

The problem is, this is the 3rd time we have tried planting these trees.

The owner of this orchard always thinks its a lack of water which is killing these, when I feel that they're getting too much water. The trees we planted away from irrigation ditches/above them had a higher success rate then the ones he made us put directly into the ditch. They don't drain, sometimes sit in or under water for over a day. The soil is still moist come the next weekly irrigation. He won't hear it anyway, claiming that they're not growing because we don't water them enough. (We carried 5 gal buckets of water daily to the new trees and hand watered hundreds of them).

I'm thinking the potato would be beneficial in the way that it would keep some sort of maintained moisture content. This way they're not getting too much water, and they're not drying out.

I wanted to start them off in a greenhouse first, in tubes and transplant after the summer heat (it gets over 110 here, sometimes up to 120) so they would have the entire fall, winter, and spring to root out and have the necessary roots to be able to benefit from the intense watering we do here. But of course, that was a no-go when I ran it past him. Its his way or the highway, and when someone mentioned the potato thing to him he ran with it. So there really isn't any option other than to do it, and hope like hell that these trees go.

 

I just spent some time this morning browsing Musser Forests catalog for some roadside planting this Spring. Saw "Musser Water Gel" listed(crosslinked polyacrylamide--which, I think is a big word for the same stuff you find in baby diapers.....) I tried some once on some carrot seeds(not from diapers, though)--but alas, the stuff swelled up so much it pushed the seeds above the soil--but that's another story.....

It looks pretty cheap, 4 oz. to mix up five gallons to treat 2,000 seedlings for $3.75. You might sneak a little bit into a trial plot and see how it does. Some people have to be told that "it's a dead horse in the bathtub....." to make them believe.

www.musserforests.com

Hope this helps