Abstract: Land degradation as well as agriculture production under scarce water conditions are vital concerns for many countries located in arid regions. The aim was to introduce, test and optimize a new mechanized transplanting technique suitable for large-scale establishment of fodder shrubs under Water Harvesting (WH) micro-catchment systems. A traditional transplanter was modified to plant 1 to 2-month old Atriplex seedlings inside the WH structures. The optimum time of planting (T1, T2 and T3), the optimum harvested water regime (4, 8 and 12 m) and the placement of transplants (V1 and V2) were investigated. Survival percentage throughout the two dry years and plant volume at the end of each year were assessed. In the first year, T2 resulted in the highest (80% with lSD = 30 at p<0.05) survival percentages, while T3 showed the least (75 cm3 with lSD = 403 at p<0.05) plant volume. However, in the second year, no drop in survival percentage was observed in T1, resulting in the best plant volume (652 cm3 with lSD = 282 at p<0.05). On the other hand, plant volume in V2 was double (603 cm3 with lSD = 174 at p<0.05) than that of V1, justifying its adoption. No significant effect of the length of the runoff area was noted in the two years due mostly to low quantity and intensity of rainfall events. Survival of Atriplex under WH systems is critical only in the first year of establishment and earlier planting guarantees better production. The new technique proved to substitute the costly and time-consuming traditional manual one. Further improvements are still viable.