Critter already.......

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5 year old buck +
Planted poplar for my in-laws and apple trees end of april. Already have critter issues.......

A apple tree or two has the low buds bitten off. These trees are caged with 2x4 mesh. Guessing voles. No bad issues yet. These are bareroot rootstock atonovka apple trees. Maybe 18 inches tall. Thought they'd be too short to put mesh on them. Damage is limited and minimal.

My poplars are uncaged, I got someone eating 5 our of the 25 already. Guessing it's a woodchuck. Not sure If I will cage them or not. Might just do the 5 or 6 important ones that would shade out a new home built behind the house.

I put down cardboard squares and put mulch ontop of the poplar, pine, and spruce bareroots I got. A good chunk of them have ants underneath. Thinking of removing the cardboard, spray gly around the tree, and mulch without the cardboard. I have sprinkle of terro ant killer.

My wife has a car and my in-laws live next door with 6 or so cats.... My guess poisoning the voles will effect the cats.
 
I’d get grow tubes on them.
 
Set this to music and you've got the beginnings of a good country and western song!

The sad part is, we've all been there with ya Bigboreblr. Keep plugging away, and accept the fact the critters will win some battles, but you'll win the war. Good luck.
 
I learned using cardboard for trees isn't a great idea.

Im getting coffee and looking at my spruce seedlings. There were 2 crows what looked like a dead squirrel at first. One crow was lifting up the cardboard, and the other was picking the bugs. The one doing all the lifting was getting mad at the bug hog......

I sprayed the seedling spots with clethodim. Not seeing much change after about 4 days though. Will spray with gly next week and remulch on bare ground......
 
I learned using cardboard for trees isn't a great idea.

Im getting coffee and looking at my spruce seedlings. There were 2 crows what looked like a dead squirrel at first. One crow was lifting up the cardboard, and the other was picking the bugs. The one doing all the lifting was getting mad at the bug hog......

I sprayed the seedling spots with clethodim. Not seeing much change after about 4 days though. Will spray with gly next week and remulch on bare ground......
Clethodim takes around two weeks to start browning out the grass. Patience my friend!
 
I prefer stone over mulch and some good excel fabric. This won’t be a popular choice but I’ve starting using poison for voles. I have been putting a 2’ section of pvc horizontally at each tree loaded with poison. There are hundreds if not thousands of voles in the field and they are way too destructive.
 
I prefer stone over mulch and some good excel fabric. This won’t be a popular choice but I’ve starting using poison for voles. I have been putting a 2’ section of pvc horizontally at each tree loaded with poison. There are hundreds if not thousands of voles in the field and they are way too destructive.
I’ve got such a high resident hawk population I’d be worried I’d harm them using poison out in my orchard. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably do the same with the poison.
 
I’ve got such a high resident hawk population I’d be worried I’d harm them using poison out in my orchard. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably do the same with the poison.
I’ll admit it’s probably not ideal but I also have to think about what I am trying to achieve. There were such a high number of voles in this field I had to do something. These things were killing all my other species of planted trees as well. I protect my fruit trees but not everything else.
 
Put screen around trunks and pull the cardboard
 
The ants I got in the mulch are tiny. Between about 80 young and 5 mature trees I used 3/4 a bag of Terro. Worked great fr carpenter ants and termites. The flakes look a bit big for tiny ants to carry.

We got rain coming tonight and sunday. Next week I am spraying gly on the weeds. After that, the cardboard is going away.

Spruce and pine are growing great. Some poplar is nibbled up, 2 dried out, the others are doing ok.
 
For anyone looking to get rid of voles and we all are who have fruit trees, look into building a barn owl nest box . Go to YouTube and type this in “ how to chose the best barn owl nest box design “. I’m putting two of them out.
 
Actually, I caught my siamese cat eating a vole in the backyard foodplot. I was just thinking a few minutes before having this tall clover / grass near the trees isn't a great mix.

Another good predator magnet is a perch. I use a 4x4 in the ground with a horizontal chunk of 2x4. I need to build one at my new home my old one had it. Thinking of making a small roof to keep him out of the rain and have some shade. Doubles as a trail cam mount. MY old home had a few rubs on it over the years too.
 
Put screen around trunks and pull the cardboard
cardboard pulled. Adding screen in a few days when I spray the cages. No girdling on any tree. Put mulch arund 3 of them, but kept about a 5 or 6 inch radius of bare ground.
 
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