so i have only about 30 1 gals to repot. it will be bareroot and moving into new soil mix. when is the best time? in the late winter/early spring, or when the weather is little warm and not too cold as in mid spring?

last year, i repot my 3 gals into 10 gal in the middle of the summer and that set the trees back about a month. i tried to avoid that and didn't up-pot my younger trees. now they are getting to a point where the 1 gal pot is too small. need them in 3-5 gal. most will stay in 5 gal as back up. few will go into 10 gal after next year.

I do a lot of them in the Fall, so they are ready to go in the Spring. But it is a bit warmer here, with a longer season.

i guess i'll do them before the trees wake up and when the night temp is above 32. maybe they won't notice what happened to them. :)

Anybody have an idea how much root growth occurs in early spring before and during bud swell\break?

I know that at least some root growth occurs at this time. When dormant/bare root plants arrive in the mail often times they have fresh segments of root growth. For this reason I chose to up pot most of my trees this fall so that they have happy feet to support early growth. I have been holding off on my two largest up pots which are going into ~13 gallon pots, thinking it's easier and takes less room to store a 3-5 gallon pot. I'm torn, maybe it would be a good mid winter project, that way they still get settled in before early spring growth.