Tubes vs cages

[yoderjac]

I've had that happen to a number of different types of tubes on 3 different sites. You're telling me you've never had a wasp nest in a tube which then drew raccoons to eat the larvae Jack? I'd say you'd be the exception if so.

This can be mitigated by spraying the tubes several times throughout the growing season...but that's maintenance

Nope. The only tube damage I've had so far is from a bear. I have had wasp nests in the tubes but never had raccoons eat them. Perhaps my raccoons are better fed or the coyotes are keeping the numbers down. I have had raccoon issues in one of my box blinds that was open. The took corn cobs up there to eat them. I've since closed that off.

 

[yoderjac]

Well when you start doing the habitat work I have done to keep deer on your land, you might experience the same thing......until then, happy tubing!

There is more habitat work in my rearview mirror than ahead of me. I'm also not advocating tubes. I'm simply saying the are a tool like caging with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Not everyone has your set of problems or mine. That is why I find it better to detail advantages and disadvantages rather than making simple good/bad statements. Overall, I think this thread covers a lot of good ground. New folks can figure out what works best for their situation.

 

[nateb440]

I've had a great time reading the responses. Mo, I have quite a few tubes that look like yours and never knew it was coons chewing through to get to the wasps. tubea are sometimes good and sometimes not. Moral of the story, they're not always good like the manufacturers want you to believe (and buy). I read somewhere once "by the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread." The more habitat work we do the more we realize "by the sweat of our brow the deer and turkey and everything else will eat and or destroy our efforts!"

 

[yoderjac]

I like tubes, I'll continue to use them...but there is no doubt that overall, they require more ongoing maintenance than do caged trees/shrubs.

The trees I use them on are my volume trees that really get no maintenance. I'm sure part of the difference is the high volume plant it, provide some minimal (if any) protection and le the tree sink or swim, verses an approach that has lower volume but highly productive well maintained trees. Many of the trees I've used them on are large enough now that I no longer really need them for protection but I haven't removed the tubes. This is mostly because I have higher priority things to do with limited time.

 

[Powder]

Mo,
What's the white fabric in your picture?

 

[Weed Wacker]

Up to this point, 2 growing seasons I have used all tubes and have experienced many of the same problems that most of you have. I plan to switch to cages and am wondering what a good average diameter size would be for hard wood seedlings, fruit trees and evergreens. I am a concrete contractor so I will be using 6x6 mesh and rebar stakes.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Mo,
What's the white fabric in your picture?

Landscape fabric

 

[Tap]

Up to this point, 2 growing seasons I have used all tubes and have experienced many of the same problems that most of you have. I plan to switch to cages and am wondering what a good average diameter size would be for hard wood seedlings, fruit trees and evergreens. I am a concrete contractor so I will be using 6x6 mesh and rebar stakes.

Concrete mesh and rebar stakes is my favorite, but deer will stick their nose in the mesh and do light browsing. I usually cut sheet of mesh about 12 feet which is just under 4 feet diameter.
Rebar can be cut short. 4 feet will work. Pound 18 inches in the ground and 2.5 feet sticks up to support the rigid mesh which is almost self supporting. I don't use any type of connector to attach to the rebar. Just go through the bottom square and weave back into the appropriate square at the top of the stake. It wedges in place. 1 stake per cage will work but 2 is better. And the 2nd stake can actually be even shorter than the 1st stake. The mesh is nearly self supporting.

Tree protection is a pain in the butt. Mice, rabbits etc can still get inside concrete mesh and gird trees. I often make a wrap of window screen or hardware cloth around the lower trunk to protect that.
Even welded wire can get mice damage.

The nice thing about concrete mesh is you can reach inside to prune and do other maintenance.

But IMO, cage is still better than tubes.

SW Pa

 

[yoderjac]

I shoot for about 15' per cage which gives me 10 cages per roll but I plan to experiment with smaller diameters. The crabapple seedlings I've been planting are already 5' - 6' tall after the first growing season when I plant them. I'll probably be removing much of the lower vegetation to force a graft at chest height leaving a single nurse branch just to see what I get from the seedling. So, as long as fawns and does can't get to the central leader or graft, I'm not worried about them browsing lower laterals.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Tree Spud]

I shoot for about 15' per cage which gives me 10 cages per roll but I plan to experiment with smaller diameters. The crabapple seedlings I've been planting are already 5' - 6' tall after the first growing season when I plant them. I'll probably be removing much of the lower vegetation to force a graft at chest height leaving a single nurse branch just to see what I get from the seedling. So, as long as fawns and does can't get to the central leader or graft, I'm not worried about them browsing lower laterals.

Thanks,

Jack

Outside of fruit bearing mast trees, I would go with 2' diameter cages. You can get 24 cages out of a 150' roll. Plenty wide enough for shrubs. On conifers, you can release the connector on one end to allow the cage to expand as the the tree grows. keeps bucks away.

On an Oak, you could get away with 47 cages that are 2' diameter out of a 150' roll.

On real fruit trees, I would do a minimum of 5' diameter ...

You can calculate diameter with C = Pi(3.14) x Diameter

 

[yoderjac]

Outside of fruit bearing mast trees, I would go with 2' diameter cages. You can get 24 cages out of a 150' roll. Plenty wide enough for shrubs. On conifers, you can release the connector on one end to allow the cage to expand as the the tree grows. keeps bucks away.

On an Oak, you could get away with 47 cages that are 12' diamete out of a 150' rollr.

On real fruit trees, I would do a minimum of 5' diameter ...

You can calculate diameter with C = Pi(3.14) x Diameter

I don't plant conifers (other than the loblolly we are farming for timber). The only oaks I've planted are DCOs and I haven't protected them. They are bush-like by nature so I'm not worried about a central leader loss and we have some many native oak seedlings in our riparian buffers, they are not sought out by deer. On pome I do use the ~5' cages (round Pi to 3). Since the remesh comes in 150' rolls, it works out to 10 cages.

I may try some of the narrow cages for crabapple seedlings to see if that is enough in my area.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[TreeDaddy]

Crap you will put up with when using tree tubes.
View attachment 11936 View attachment 11937 View attachment 11938

Looks like my place!!!!!

bill

 

[Tap]

[QUOTE="Tree Spud, post: 130239,
On an Oak, you could get away with 47 cages that are 12' diamete out of a 150' rollr.[/QUOTE]


I know I'm a bit math challenged, but 47 twelve foot cages from a 150 foot roll doesn't quite compute, does it?

SW Pa

 

[Tree Spud]

[QUOTE="Tree Spud, post: 130239,
On an Oak, you could get away with 47 cages that are 12' diamete out of a 150' rollr.

I know I'm a bit math challenged, but 47 twelve foot cages from a 150 foot roll doesn't quite compute, does it?

SW Pa[/QUOTE]

TAP ... Good catch! Should have been 2' diameter ...

 

[H20fwler]

I count out 21 squares on the remesh while cutting it for my fruit and chestnut trees (so about 12 1/2'), for conifers I let weeds grow up high around them and that seems to help them from getting a lot of unwanted attention when they are small.

 

[pointer]

Glad the discussion went the direction of cage size as I was just going to ask that question. In stead of rebar, has anyone just used tent stakes (2-3) to hold the cage in place? I've had good luck in the past using them with sheep fencing to build exclusion cages in rangeland settings for sheep and cattle. Just another option to consider.

 

[Tap]

Glad the discussion went the direction of cage size as I was just going to ask that question. In stead of rebar, has anyone just used tent stakes (2-3) to hold the cage in place? I've had good luck in the past using them with sheep fencing to build exclusion cages in rangeland settings for sheep and cattle. Just another option to consider.

No reason tent stakes wouldn't work. What kind of tent stakes? They come in a bunch of designs.
A friend from that old forum used to cut off the edge, lineal wire of his concrete mesh cages to form "built-in" stakes. He would push the entire bottom 6" of the cage into the soil. He said it worked fine. I tried that and thought my rocky ground made it a little difficult to push into the ground.
I've had concrete mesh cages stand a long time with NO stakes. I'd place the cage and run out of rebar...always seemed like a long time before I got back to add stakes. Most of the time, the cage was just as I left it, but deer DO run into cages. I always thought 1 wrap of surveyor tape would make the cage more visible to a running deer.

SW Pa

 

[H20fwler]

Agree, it doesn't take much to keep them in place. I've used Tposts/flat posts/rebar/garden stakes, new and old...it normally only takes one zip tied to the remesh to anchor it down.

 

[pointer]

Something similar to these worked well:

A 12 pack for $15 (Walmart) is pretty darn cheap. I don't have a method for cutting rebar, so may very well go this route.

 

[Tap]

[QUOTE="pointer, post: 130323, I don't have a method for cutting rebar, so may very well go this route.[/QUOTE]

An angle grinder cuts rebar great.

SW Pa