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I was replacing trunk screens today noticed these holes on several of my older (7 yr old) trees. The trees look good otherwise. Is this from birds or something else and how can I combat this. I spray my trees about every 2 weeks with Imadan during the summer.
Peeps: I ran into that problem with sapsuckers last year. They started on like 5 different trees so what I did was put aluminum window screen on the areas . Some trees have like a 4 ft strip of it, but it’s been deterring them. I’m pretty sure it can kill your trees.
My wife and I were just to a National Historic site here in SE Pa. where there are dozens of apple trees that were planted more than 80 years ago. They all had hundreds of sapsuckers holes drilled into them, but they were alive and producing apples. FWIW.
ARRRRRG Wood peckering sap suckering feathered flying, airborne tree rats.... You would think they were running some kind of covert maple syrup, apple flavored tapping ring. Once they get on a tree they are there for ever it seems.
^ ^ ^ ^ Those look like borer holes to me. Too neat & clean compared to sapsuckers' holes I've seen. Sapsuckers' holes appear more ragged around the edges. Maybe there are other sapsucker varieties that make neat holes??? Our holes aren't anywhere near that perfect.
Sapsucker damage
Borer holes
Sapsucker damage, also with borer holes. The sapsucker likely stressed the tree/bush quite a bit, making it more susceptible to insect/borer damage.
^ ^ ^ ^ I was looking at those perfectly round holes - and not the other drillings. Looks like a combination of both borers & sapsucker damage. I don't know how we can keep sapsuckers from drilling into our trees. I've seen many fruit trees that look like your 1st pic in post #11 - but those trees still put on lots of fruit.
If you use tanglefoot on your trees, it keeps the ants out. IF you keep the ants out, the aphids don't have a spot to feed from the ant injury site. Say they go away in a few days. I swear all of nature is out to get our trees.
With the number of trees we have at camp, I could keep the "screen factory" working overtime!! For some reason, sapsuckers have seemed to only target certain trees. Maybe it's only a matter of time until they drill the rest of them.
This is the case for many growers. Since they only target certain trees, you shouldn't need to be keeping the screen makers or Tanglefoot producers working overtime.