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You do not need any stakes or at most one stake with these unless you are dealing with moose. I have bought the cheapest conduit from Menards and cut a 10 foot piece into 2 or 3 pieces to stake the wire down.
You do not need any stakes or at most one stake with these unless you are dealing with moose. I have bought the cheapest conduit from Menards and cut a 10 foot piece into 2 or 3 pieces to stake the wire down.[/QUO
Are we talking stakes to secure the cages or to support the tree? For cages you can probably get away without any stakes if you go with the concrete mesh, personally I like 2 stakes to secure the cage. The trees themselves will benefit from a stake several feet tall to be able to give the main leader some directional support, especially in really windy locations.
Are we talking stakes to secure the cages or to support the tree? For cages you can probably get away without any stakes if you go with the concrete mesh, personally I like 2 stakes to secure the cage. The trees themselves will benefit from a stake several feet tall to be able to give the main leader some directional support, especially in really windy locations.
I Picked up eight rolls yesterday (thanks for the tip), planning on using two T-post per cage. For tree stakes, I'm using 1/2 conduit. I bought 80 10 footers when they were on sale for 1.79. I still need to purchase top soil, manure and peat moss. Looking forward to spring!
Dont make them any smaller. You will get anterless deer reaching through your cages and doing your pruning for you. You can make them smaller if you wrap a section of poultry wire around the cage to exclude the deer.
You'll want to put some window screen down around the trunks so the mice don't girdle the trunks. I buy a roll of the standard aluminum window screen that's about 24" tall and I cut it in 18" lengths and staple it together with a standard stapler. I typically bury the screen down a couple inches into the dirt so the mice can't get under it.
I've also had good luck with the white plastic spiral trunk guards, but I've heard the screens work better for air flow so I've switched. I haven't had any rodent damage with either method, but the few times I've tried to skip that step I've ended up with girdled trees that die.
Thanks Ben, 2nd Hand and Crazy Ed.
I have 14 Apple trees coming this spring and want to get this right.
2nd Hand, where are you located in west central wisconsin?