Work problem, physics solution

[zheiland]

I work at a nursery in California where we go out and plant the trees that we sell. Some of these trees are in 36" boxes and weigh up to 1700 lbs. Many times customers have 3-5 feet retainer walls and don't want to pay for a crane, and the planting crew is forced to hand lift these boxes inch by inch along a make shift ramp. I figured it would save a lot of time and money if we just built our own pulley system. Any suggestions on schematics or possible solutions to the problem?

 

[CWatters]

So at the moment you give your customers the extra manpower and time required to build ramps free of charge. Have you worked out if it's cheaper for you to buy a crane and give them a free crane rental instead of free manpower?

Perhaps look at a Griphoist or Tirfor winches? The problem might be finding a suitable ground anchor to fix the other end to.