Cages for oak trees

[BuckSutherland]

Ok, I have 50 of them in tubes, but I have 10 that I want to make cages for. How big does the cage need to be? I have been using 10 feet of cage for conifers. I don’t feel like I need that much for oak trees. I have been thinking 6 feet of welded wire would be enough??? What do you experts do?

 

[The Fishman]

How tall are the trees? If the central leader is above browse height, I think that a 2-foot diameter cage would suffice. You are now trying to protect against rubbing and not browse. Six feet of welded wire should protect against rubbing. I am probably going to be doing this to several trees later this year. I have a bunch of 2-year-old oaks that are 6-8' tall. I want to be able to reuse the tubes for new trees, but still protect the old trees.

 

[BuckSutherland]

Trees are 12-16" tall. I just planted them last weekend. I have 4' weld wire. If I take 6' of rope and make a circle it give me a 21" diameter cage. I think it will take 3 years for the trees to get all the way to the top of the 4' cage. I am gonna zip tie the cage to a 6' T post. I thought in a year or two I could move the cage up and suspend it on the post so they dont bite the leader. Maybe I should just get taller wire though.

 

[The Fishman]

I was thinking your trees were bigger since you were removing tubes. If the trees are that small and you have significant deer browse pressure, I don't think a 48 inch welded wire, small diameter cage is going to work. They are going to reach right over the top and chow down. It probably won't kill the tree, but it will set it back. Either get taller welded wire, make the cages larger in diameter to stop the deer from reaching over the top, or stack one small diameter cage on top of another to get the top of the cage taller than 60 inches. I have had them reach over short cages and turn trees into bushes. Of course, I have had deer totally ignore trees that I direct seeded with no protection and eat trees that I "protected", but didn't get the cage high enough.

 

[Tree Spud]

I use 6' of fence. If the branches start to poke out of the side of the cage the deer will browse them. I usually prune the lower branches to get a central leader that will grow up and out the top of the cage so deer cannot grab side branches.