Protecting spruce

[Brian662]

In the past years I've removed some cages from my spruce trees after they've outgrown the cages. Mostly norways but also black hills variety. I'm talking 6-8' tall beautiful trees... the year after I remove the cage and repurpose it, I've had some problems with bucks rubbing the spruce nearly killing them.

Has anyone tried to deter deer from doing this? These aren't in a location where there is a lot of deer traffic, mostly road or property screens. I'm thinking of taking two T-posts and pounding them in near the trunk where they wouldn't interfere with a lateral branch. Any other ideas?

 

[SD51555]

I hate this problem. I don’t know the answer. I will say, if f you throw enough money and time at it, you can beat them.


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[TreeDaddy]

I loosely wrap chicken wire around my young shumard oaks

Seems to deter rubs from deer and hogs

bill

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Had this same problem, Brian. Sprinkle skunk P or coyote P around them? Bars of smelly soap hung in nylon stockings??? I don't have a good answer. The one thing I can share is that once spruce get 8' to 10' tall, rubbing doesn't seem to kill the trees - just makes 'em look ugly for a few years. I haven't seen any such spruce croak because of rubbing once they've reached a decent size. It ticks me off when so much time, material, and money have been spent to grow nice, thick spruce .... but that's just what bucks want to do.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I had the same thing happen with some caged red pine and white spruce. I needed the cages for a different spot and I thought they were too big to rub.

I fixed the issue by hauling some buckthorn tree tops around the conifers. Bucks don’t seem to like to stand in downed brush to make a rub, so they leave them alone. You could use any kind of tree as well, I’ve had good luck dragging a big pine that blew down in my yard in front of a few pines I wanted to protect.

 

[SD51555]

I had the same thing happen with some caged red pine and white spruce. I needed the cages for a different spot and I thought they were too big to rub.

I fixed the issue by hauling some buckthorn tree tops around the conifers. Bucks don’t seem to like to stand in downed brush to make a rub, so they leave them alone. You could use any kind of tree as well, I’ve had good luck dragging a big pine that blew down in my yard in front of a few pines I wanted to protect.

That would be my first go-to. If I could source enough brush nearby, I'd make a barrier around all of them.