Gaining Ground: How Mercier Orchards Used a Dozer to Plant 4X More Trees

Mercier Orchards, a family-run farm in Blue Ridge, Georgia, has been growing apples and memories since 1943. Now in its fourth generation, the orchard continues to thrive—thanks in part to an innovative solution created in partnership with their local Cat^® dealer, Yancey.

The Mercier family was facing a challenge: steep hills across the orchard had gone unused for decades due to erosion and tough terrain. “We were coming off a lot of the land we’ve been farming since 1943,” explained Joe Foster, who has helped manage the orchards since marrying into the family. “It just became harder and harder to get tractors on it.”

Fortunately, Joe comes from a construction family and is a third-generation operator himself. “I was always a Cat guy growing up,” he said. “It was like my thing, and I kind of brought that to the farm.” He knew their Cat dozer could handle slopes that tractors couldn’t; they just needed a way to use the dozer to prep the soil for planting. So, Joe did what his family always did when they needed support with their equipment—he reached out to the team at Yancey.

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Working with Yancey’s Peyton Mann and Paul McKnight, Joe was able to develop a custom planter attachment for his dozer. Using the dozer’s ripper as a base, the team fabricated a tree planter that mimicked the functionality of a traditional three-point tractor attachment. “We built that little tree planter with the little hoppers for the trees and everything,” he said.

The results were game-changing.

Prior to developing the custom attachment, the most they had ever planted in a single year was 3,900 trees. The first year they had the custom dozer attachment, they planted 18,000—four times more trees than they’d ever planted in a single year before, with many being planted on land that had been previously inaccessible. “We’re planting ground that was last planted 45–50 years ago, and they had to plant it by hand because it was so steep. Now we’re using the dozer to reshape and terrace the hillside so that it’s safer for tractors,” Joe said. “It's letting us grow our business. We' re kind of in a renaissance.”

Now, two years later, Mercier Orchards is using the dozer attachment to plant more than just apples— it’s helped them reclaim land for blueberry and blackberry bushes too. Joe admits that a dozer isn’t the first thing people think of when they imagine farm equipment, but he thinks more farmers should seriously consider investing in one: “After using it to the extent that we use it, I tell every farmer that I talk to now you got to have one of these,” he said. “You're not just going to use it for this single purpose. You're going to find 150 more uses for that thing before you know it.”

After 81 years of family farming, Mercier Orchards continues to grow, thanks in part to a commitment to creative innovation and a strong partnership with Yancey Cat.