Move Mature Trees with Dozer-Like Confidence — Why the Sibom skid steer tree spade Turns Every CAT, Bobcat, and Kubota Loader into a Nursery-Grade Transplanter

Modern land-use jobs seldom give trees enough time to grow where they’re planted. Golf courses shift bunkers, municipalities widen roads, developers redesign streetscapes, orchard owners re-space rows, and Christmas-tree farms pot evergreens for retail yards. All those moves demand a tool that scoops earth fast yet treats living roots like fine crystal. Enter the Sibom skid steer 4-blade tree spade—a tough, compact, four-panel cone engineered to let one operator sitting in any CAT 262, Bobcat T770, or Kubota SVL75 dig, lift, transport, and re-set a healthy specimen in minutes.

Four Blades for a Cleaner Cone

Three-blade designs rule the entry market, but serious arborists trust a four-blade tree spade because the extra panel finishes the cone without leaving a flat side that shears feeder roots. Sibom machines each blade from HARDOX 450 tree spade plate, water-jets the profile, then robot-welds it into a precision V that meets the next panel at an over-lapping joint. The geometry slips between surface roots, snips lateral feeders with a single downward cut, and ribbons soil into a tight conical root ball spade shape. That uniform cone fits perfectly into augered holes and drops neatly into wire baskets or burlap wraps— no shovel shaving after the lift, no crumbling shoulders, no mortality-risk voids.

Because the moldboard curve continues above the hinge line, operators watch the entire digging edge from the cab—an advantage especially in narrow lawns or nursery grid aisles where a compact tree spade must land precisely without bruising adjacent trunks.

A Frame Stiff Enough for Clay, Light Enough for Turf

A transplant cone full of wet loam weighs thousands of pounds, so Sibom presses its tower from high-strength box tubing, braces the corners with triangular gussets, and anchors each hinge on a reinforced frame tree spade rear cross-bar. The result is a heavy duty tree spade that refuses to rack or yaw even in glacial till. Yet by contour-cutting internal webs, engineers kept the weight under common skid-loader tipping limits; a Kubota SVL can run the medium cone without counterweights, and a CAT 299 carries the large cone while still meeting travel-speed targets.

Twin cushioned cylinders—protected by bolt-on guards—force each blade through hardpan. A single toggle in the cab fires a spool block that sends equal flow to opposing rams, so the cone closes square and lifts straight. The hydraulic tree spade circuit uses ORFS hoses with flat-face tips, making the system universally clean on rental lots and shock-free when snapped onto Bobcat’s low-flow quick coupler.

Root Health First, Always

Transplant survival hinges on root-ball integrity. Sibom’s blade edges taper to a knife-sharp bevel milled after heat-treat—no weld bead fragmentation to snag fine roots. A root ball preservation spade rubber sleeve hugs the cone once closed, locking damp soil against vibration during loader transport. Optional gate clamps add a mechanical hug for bumpy off-road runs, transforming the digger into a fully fledged tree ball cutter attachment ready to ship soil cones onto nursery wagons with minimal crumble.

Because real-world soil varies, a dash-mounted knob tunes hydraulic PSI, making the tool an adjustable pressure tree spade. Drop force for sandy loam so the blades glide; dial it up in rocky shale for a determined bite that still leaves clean cuts.

Speed that Pays

One CAT 299 operator clocked 45 seconds from ground contact to full lift on a 26-inch maple—nearly twice as fast as his boom-truck subcontractor. That kind of cycle time turns a high efficiency tree spade into real billable gain:

• Landscape contractors reposition high-value ornamentals in the same day, no waiting on outside crews.

• Municipal parks transplant wind-thrown saplings the day after the storm, not the season after.

• Golf superintendents move trees between hazards overnight without dawn fairway closures.

• Christmas tree farms pre-ball large firs during off-season and stock holding yards before customers arrive.

Operators report less fatigue too, calling it the most labor saving tree spade they’ve used—sit, toggle, tilt, haul, repeat.

Safer, Cleaner, Lower Cost

A cone full of soil and roots is priceless. So Sibom built anti-drip check valves so no blade drifts open and dumps cargo. Fold-up rear stabilizers keep load height low—critical on sloped parks where tilt can flip a top-heavy ball. Blade edge covers pin on for highway moves, making the whole rig a safe tree transplant tool approved by DOT line inspectors.

With only four grease zerks and sealed pivot pins, it’s also undeniably a low maintenance tree spade. Operators hit the bearings at week’s end, wipe hydraulic tips, and park—done. Over the life of the attachment, owners spend more on root-ball burlap than on shop labor.

More Than a Loader Tool

Because the tower unbolts from the skid plate, dealers mount the same cone on mini excavators for hillside timber salvage or on three-point tractors for orchard work. That “Swiss army” versatility lets a single purchase replace exotic truck mount alternative spade rigs and temperamental trailer systems. One professional arborist even chained a Sibom cone to a telehandler boom for 15-foot dig depth; the blades bit, and the tree lived.

Proven in the Field

• Parks tree spade crews near Chicago transplanted 300 ash replacements in a single spring—97 percent survival through drought summer.

• A Texas Christmas tree farm spade digger pulled 1,200 firs in two weeks, shipping them in wire baskets without a single root-ball break.

• A Pacific Northwest forestry tree spade rescue saved saplings from a landslide path two hours before heavy equipment arrived, validating the attachment’s mobility.

Each case ended the same: no subcontractor fees, lower labor cost, happier saplings.

Ordering Made Simple

Specify blade cone size, choose HARDOX or standard alloy, pick open-frame or closed tower, add gate clamps if you haul long distances, and Sibom ships the assembly ready for flat-face hookup. Every purchase includes a laminated quick-start guide, cylinder psi chart by soil type, and QR-linked service videos. The spade arrives fork-ready on a low deck; snap it to your CAT, Bobcat, or Kubota, prime the lines, and start digging before trucking leaves the yard.

Sibom skid steer tree spade—Dig, lift, and re-plant with a hardened four-blade cone that puts root survival first and schedule overruns last. Attach once, transplant many, profit always.