I have an acre and half SE of bismarck and planted trees in 2016. I went with black hills spruce, freeman maples and lilacs. Some of the maples died off and i replaced with Amur maples, since then i haven't lost any trees, other than to the rabbits. I put down fabric, but did nothing with the soil other than mow the grass to 2.5". I used the shovel in the link below to plant all of them. The problem i see with tilling up or plowing the area, especially if there aren't any trees in the area now, is that the staples that hold the fabric down won't have as much to grab onto. My staples were pretty tough to put in, needed a 3lb hammer for most of them. If you roll the edges of the fabric into the soil and cover the edges, then not a big deal.
i spaced my rows too close together, only 10'. My spruce and maples are 10' apart tree-to-tree, and i wish i would've went more. My lilacs are 3' apart.
I go through all the trees (about 500 total) 3 times a year and pull weeds/grass that has come up through the holes in the fabric. I keep the grass between the fabric mowed and hand sprayed for weeds, and once a year i will put fertilizer down in between the rows, usually 20-10-10 from Hubbard. I'll hand water my trees a few times a year now. in 2016 when I planted them, i probably watered all of them about 6 times. I didn't install drip irrigation. Keep in mind i am not an agronomist or tree hugger of any sorts.. but i can see that with a drip irrigation system, the roots will stay towards the top where the moisture is, compared to letting the tree dig down to find its own water source. Kind of like the welfare system.. why work for your money when you can get it for free from the government.
My maples are anywhere from 4-7' tall, lilacs are 1.5-3' tall, and the spruce hasn't changed much since planting.
there is a lot of good information on this forum, learned a lot looking through here and seeing what everyone else does.
https://www.forestry-suppliers.com/product_pages/products.php?mi=15922&itemnum=69041&redir=Y
