im in the aquisition process of an auger and a couple of bits for my skidsteer a 9 inch for fence post and im looking at a 24 for some potted trees and ive stumbled into something called a tree bit what are the benefits of this over a standard bit? or for potted trees am i fine with the standard bit?
a tree auger or do you mean a tree spade? ( a 3 bladed shovel to dig out trees)
A so called tree auger is just a 2 stage bit. The first foot of bit is roughly half the diameter of the rest of the bit. The idea is that it creates a stepped hole that better fits a root ball. As in B&B stock not potted liners. We use both straight and tree bits for field planting our stock. We plant anywhere from 1 to 7 trade gallon size to the field. It really makes no difference what bit you use as long as you get proper clearance for backfilling. We tend to over dig the holes and hand fill as needed to adjust depth. Regardless of what size you use if you are going to be doing a lot of them be sure to hardface the auger and teeth. Even at that we only get a few thousand holes before needing to redo them. Be sure to buy the heavy duty bits. The standard duty ones are junk unless you have no rocks and nice loose soil. Rocks bend and rip the flights right off.
Yes, get the 2 stage auger, and make sure it has the 5/8" 1 bolt replaceable teeth, replacements are easy, at driller's world. ..