More cage questions

[Hoytvectrix]

Since everyone else was adding in their own setups, I thought I would include mine. We had a bunch of deer fencing (found here), that 7 feet tall. We also had a bunch of steel fence posts lying around. Using the three posts, zipties, and fencing, we have had zero deer browse on any of our trees. The fencing used on other parts of our property has held up for four years now, but time will tell if this method will work beyond the first couple of years and get the plants to maturity.

 

[Chainsaw]

Very nice, Hoytvectrix. It does take a third stake compared to using wire but it is an easier to work with material. I do know someone who used the synthetic fencing for an exclusion fence of a large area and they had gotten eight years out of it at that point. I had not thought of using it for caging. Thanks for posting your pic; it is an interesting alternative for those of us not plagued by bears.

 

[willy]

In the spring of 09 I planted 200 seedling persimmon, 200 rooted hybrid poplar cuttings, and 200 pine. They were browsed and destroyed(all but three total made it to the next spring. I then realized how high of deer density I had and that I couldn't grow a tree on the place without caging of some sort. I decided to do battle of attrition with cuttings of willow and poplars but cage everything else. Not many cuttings made it but each year some do and when ehd came through in 2012 it allowed for a large percentage of cuttings to make it till the next spring and they in turn made it to the following and now they are what I hinge for the deer in winter. I now have to cage or tube cuttings if I want to get them to 3 years old. It sucks but its the only way I can get a tree to make it on my farm.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

As others have said - it seems to depend on your location, numbers of deer, and other food available if any. We have thousands of naturally seeded white pines & the deer don't touch them. They will nip the new tops of Norway spruce if snow is crusted / harder digging in food plots.

 

[BuckSutherland]

Sounds like me. Pretty sure they ate 990/990 of my 4a Norway Spruce plugs. Deer can be real d*cks.

I think if you can get Norways to year 4 they will harden off enough that the deer wont browse them. Then your concern is having them rub the shit out of them. They are like candy when they are young though. Learned that one the HARD way.

 

[BuckSutherland]

This thread is disappointing! I’ve planned on planting thousands of white pine and Fraser fir to add diversity on our place. Zero chance I could cage that many. I had no idea deer like to eat white pine that much.


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Sometimes less= more. I've only been planting trees for about 6 years. Others have more experience, but these are my observations. Planting small plugs and walking away and trying to overwhelm the woods with quantity was a HUGE flop (epic waste of time, money, sweat). The deer ate them or the weeds choked them and almost nothing survived. What has worked is to get the biggest plugs or seedlings available, protect them, kill the weeds around them, get them some sun. I am adding landscape fabric around a bunch of conifers this spring so I dont have to compete with mid summer temperatures and swamp ass to keep them in good sun all summer. I would experiment before I go all in if I were you.


Here is the only original white pine that we have in the yard at the hunting shack. Sept, 2013 it was about 7' tall. Over the years we slowly moved our wood bunker and fire pit back and cut some of the shit trees down to get some sunlight in and it exploded. We measured it at deer hunting this fall and its now 22' tall.

 

[Chainsaw]

Here is a link to a Cornell publication called Northeastern Tree Planting and Reforestration. It was written in 2009 and it covers the subject very completely. It is 68 pages long but well worth the read. It has no magic bullets but just good solid thinking on the subject.
http://www2.dnr.cornell.edu/ext/info/pubs/management/TreePlantingBulletin12-09.pdf

 

[H20fwler]

This thread is disappointing! I’ve planned on planting thousands of white pine and Fraser fir to add diversity on our place. Zero chance I could cage that many. I had no idea deer like to eat white pine that much.

That is exactly where I was at four five years ago wanting a bunch of them with zero maintenance...live and learn. The only thing that can keep them going for me is to protect them, I planted from plugs up to 3' white pines and the deer were just rude about the whole thing.
So I focused on smaller plantings with bigger trees in specific areas that I knew I wanted/needed them bad like road screen and thermal clumps. I started caging with cheap used farm fence and don't plan on ever taking it off, it can rust off. I also just keep adding twenty or thirty every spring buying them bare root from a good nursery planting them in early spring.
I think the deer focus on young pines so much here because everything else is mostly mixed hardwoods and they just don’t see many pines so they get turned on by them more than other young trees.

 

[Tree Spud]

I think if you can get Norways to year 4 they will harden off enough that the deer wont browse them. Then your concern is having them rub the shit out of them. They are like candy when they are young though. Learned that one the HARD way.

I have had 5'-6' norways, firs, pines rubbed with top 2'-3' leader snapped when I did not cage them.