Protect Apple Trees from Wildlife ?

[nrowles]

I bought 5 apple trees over the weekend and got them planted. They are about 5 feet tall and have a guard that wraps around the lower 18" or so. I have almost all wildlife imaginable for central PA. Heck I almost hit a fisher pulling out of the driveway this morning which was pretty wild.

Do I need to protect the trees from wildlife in addition to the wrap at bottom? Fence? With them already being 5 feet, how big would the fence need to be? And how long (to what size) do they need to be fenced? I feel like I overpaid for these because I thought I remembered them being cheaper and I had already rented an auger for other trees I was planting and didn't want to run all over trying to find cheaper ones and have to rent the auger again later so I bought them anyways. With that being said, I don't want deer or bear or something else to destroy them since I paid so much.

 

[cavey]

So.... everything will want to kill them for a while,.... In a perfect world this is what I would do, have a fenced in orchard .... next to that 5 foot remesh in as large of a cage as I could afford so I could pull down and train the best branch crotch angles ...

But....... my best trees come out of 7' square cages with (4) 7 1/2 foot t-post pounded in a half foot with the 5' remesh held to the top of the posts so predators like fox and coyotes can get in under the fence to the base of the tree to hunt mice. Then as tall as the snow plus+ some for aluminum window screen held tight and stapled around the trunks - for as long as possible, ideally the trunks painted white on the south sides, and all the grass killed off 3' around the base of the tree....

with 5 trees I would do this in a blink of the eye, but i understand $$$ Im not rich and the trees themselves are expensive. A better rule is your trees were the cheapest thing about planting apple trees.

Then the reality of too many trees and not enough $$$ to buy remesh comes to play..... so I cut my remesh at 26 squares roughly 10.83333333333' of remesh cage per tree with the last one cut out of the roll being a big cage for my favorite trees.... then 18" minimum aluminum window screen often 24" high depending on what I have.... (they come out of my nursery with 18" screen)...

I always chemical out the weed control - some use plastic or weed block.... either way you want zero weeds around your tree trunk.... I say to but never do the white paint (good idea though) some will mix in a bit of plaster to hassle the boring bugs at the base of the tree. Most of my cages are held down by 1 t-post just due to the economics of hundreds of trees. T-posts are bought at auctions or where ever i can find them cheapest.


I would say count on protecting your trees for 10 years+ - its a long term thing, racoons will pull down branches as will bears.... then when you think you can pull the cages the bucks will come in and tear the trunk up. I leave 1 t post or 2 a foot out from the trunk unless i have left some lower branches on the trees...

draw back is that if you have branches lower than 5 feet they will likely have crappy crotch angles with the cages. holding the branches upward.


Dont skimp on protection - and dont think your out of the woods because your tree is 5 feet tall.... Ive had 10 plus year old trees killed - murdered by deer and mice, damaged by racoons and bear.... not to mention wood peckers or sap suckers Good luck hope this helps

 

[Ed Brodt]

We use 4 pallets with one screw in each corner. Weed cloth runs the full width and length on the ground and is held in place by the pallets. Water that first year is essential. Once a week we would pour 5 gallons of water around each tree. These pics are right after planting. Trees are now 5 years old and all have pears on them this year. We are leaving pallets up for a couple of more years to prevent rubbing by bucks.

 

[PatinPA]

I'm in roughly the same location as you. I have a very high local deer population and haven't had any problems yet. (knock on wood). I did have a couple of my cages flipped over this year. Not sure if it was wildlife or people but the trees were left alone. I have all of what I consider my valuable trees caged. Some that I planted as seedlings are only tubed. I've gotten lucky and haven't had any mouse damage as I've never put window screen around them. I just got a roll and am planning on doing that this summer. I used concrete remesh initially but now that that's gotten pretty expensive I downsized to 4 ft. X 100 ft. rolls of fencing. It's kind of flimsy but it's kept everything away. I get the occasional bear pass through too.

 

[TenPoint]

2x4 mesh 5' fencing cut to 12.5' length gives you a 4' dia. cage. That'll keep everything out except bear. No bears where I'm at so can't help with those.

If it's one of those white spiral wraps, they can be worthless when the trunk gets older and exposed. Most use aluminum window screen folded around the trunk and stapled out from the trunk, up, and then back over to the trunk.

 

[nrowles]

Wow. Guess I didn't know what I was getting myself into here. I wasn't too worried about it until I paid 75% more for the trees this past weekend than what I remembered the price being. I will have to read back over the responses again later but I live in the "pallet hub" of the country so I can generally get them for free if that's a good option.

 

[Derek Reese 29]

everyone has their own "system" but the one that has worked for me (never lost a tree to a critter yet out of 5+ dozen planted is aluminum window screen 36" long cut at 9" length and stapled around the trunk so it can expand as needed, with a weed mat at least 3'X3' then covered with some kind of coarse gravel (I use limestone screening, 1 5 gallon bucket per tree), then use either 6"x 6" remesh at 5' tall or 2"x4" wire screen at 5' 5 tall and staked in the ground with either 4-5' rubber coated steel rods or 1-2 4' T posts...hardest thing to do there is weed whack around it a couple times a year..note I am just a bit North of you near Williamsport and also have all kinds of tree-loving/attacking critters

 

[Brian662]

Here is what I did this year with 8 apples and 4 pears in my new plot orchard, SW WI.

Cut 2x4" welded wire cages 15' of length, cage is 5' tall. Three T-posts to hold the welded wire
4' weed mat with mulch
24" hardware cloth around the trunk that I supported using the mulch. It appears on a few that I may need to support this hardware cloth in a different fashion in the future.

 

[cavey]

Wow. Guess I didn't know what I was getting myself into here. I wasn't too worried about it until I paid 75% more for the trees this past weekend than what I remembered the price being. I will have to read back over the responses again later but I live in the "pallet hub" of the country so I can generally get them for free if that's a good option.

I think the main gist of it all is you will need to protect the trees on a number of levels, otherwise its not if but when and the older the tree to more painful its death.

 

[cavey]

If it's one of those white spiral wraps, they can be worthless when the trunk gets older and exposed.

Somewhere I have a pic of what a mouse chewed, candy cane'ed tree looks just because of that spread open spiral effect as the trunk grows.

 

[BobinCt]

U can never have enough protection in my opinion

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

12.5 feet of welded wire with one steel fencepost per tree works well for me. I also staple aluminum window screen around the trunks to prevent vole damage. Every fall I spray the trunks with a 50/50 mix of white interior latex paint and water to prevent SW injury on the trunks. Nothing works perfectly, but that combo has worked really well for me over the years.

I prune the trees so the first scaffold branch is around 5' high and once the trees are that large, I pull the large cage and use it on a new tree. I then place a smaller welded wire cage around the trunk to prevent buck rub damage.

 

[Prof.Kent]

I bought 5 apple trees over the weekend and got them planted. They are about 5 feet tall and have a guard that wraps around the lower 18" or so. I have almost all wildlife imaginable for central PA. Heck I almost hit a fisher pulling out of the driveway this morning which was pretty wild.

Do I need to protect the trees from wildlife in addition to the wrap at bottom? Fence? With them already being 5 feet, how big would the fence need to be? And how long (to what size) do they need to be fenced? I feel like I overpaid for these because I thought I remembered them being cheaper and I had already rented an auger for other trees I was planting and didn't want to run all over trying to find cheaper ones and have to rent the auger again later so I bought them anyways. With that being said, I don't want deer or bear or something else to destroy them since I paid so much.

I bought 5 apple trees over the weekend and got them planted. They are about 5 feet tall and have a guard that wraps around the lower 18" or so. I have almost all wildlife imaginable for central PA. Heck I almost hit a fisher pulling out of the driveway this morning which was pretty wild.

Do I need to protect the trees from wildlife in addition to the wrap at bottom? Fence? With them already being 5 feet, how big would the fence need to be? And how long (to what size) do they need to be fenced? I feel like I overpaid for these because I thought I remembered them being cheaper and I had already rented an auger for other trees I was planting and didn't want to run all over trying to find cheaper ones and have to rent the auger again later so I bought them anyways. With that being said, I don't want deer or bear or something else to destroy them since I paid so much.

This should answer several of your questions...

 

[bigboreblr]

Deer- atleast 10ft of 5ft tall ,or 14ft of 4ft fence. At 4ft up they can reach in about 18 inches. Mature trees have been made with only 10ft of 4ft fence, but you may have some setbacks.

Voles- some sort of 8 inch diamter fine screen 3ft tall, maybe 4ft in heavy snow areas. Loose easy to dig soil they can dig. Put you fine mesh 3 inches below. If voles are bad, use sharp gravel. A little under the weedmat, and 1-2+ inches above. Keeping the area mowed will deter voles from going to your trees. Trees and food plots can be a problem.

Rabbits / woodchucks - the large cage will keep big ones out, the little cage around the trunk will prevent little ones from girdling the bark.

Racoon / bears: They add weight to the tree and break branches. Training a tree with good branch angles helps. Removing fruit from young trees helps the grow bigger faster and without critter crawling on young major branches. Major fence work can help, but is costly. electric fences.

Ants: Will try to girdle the trees. Use ant killer a few times a year.

Join a huntinng club and add drunk idiots on UTVs to your problems too.....

 

[nrowles]

Thanks for all the valuable information and videos and pictures.

I definitely didn't do my due diligence with this project. I always heard there is quite a bit of care for the trees with pruning and weed control and all that but never considered how much money and effort goes into the protection from wildlife. Lesson learned.

What is the purpose of the white paint?

Does the weed mat go right around the base or do I keep that a foot out for water to get through better and then actively weed around the base of the tree? Or does the weed mat let adequate water through?

Comments about stapling the screen at bottom.......Are you actually stapling the screen to the tree itself?

 

[Ed Brodt]

Weed cloth should cover as much as possible. Water will go through it. Do not staple the screen to the tree. Really not much maintenance after the initial set up. Protect against deer and mice. First year keep watered. Keep weeds under control.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

What is the purpose of the white paint?

White paint is used for mainly 2 purposes - protection from sunscald, and also as a help against boring insects. For sunscald protection, paint the trunks with white paint on the south (sunny) side of the tree. For borer protection, many orchardists paint the entire trunk (all sides) from the soil level up to the lowest limbs with white paint, with drywall joint compound added to the paint. The addition of joint compound supposedly makes life tough for boring / chewing insects.