What is on these trees

[Charman03]

I just did some pruning on those old neglected trees from my other pruning thread below. While getting a closer look at the tree I noticed there's small holes almost all over portions of the trunk. I'll try to get a picture up but my Photobucket is being weird. Any ideas, I'm sure this has something to do with these trees not producing much anymore

 

[Charman03]

 

[Charman03]

 

[DLH]

Looks like a sap sucking wood pecker. Not sure what could be done to keep them from doing it. I have seen apple trees with these sap sucking holes. I guess you could drag the ol 12 gauge out but I would say that's highly frowned upon by the law.

 

[chickenlittle]

We have a mature macintosh and ca rab that have been visited by sapsuckers in years past. This winter, pileated woodpeckers are working on those trees pretty hard. I am debated cutting them off below the damage and barkgrafting them to something else.

 

[Charman03]

Pretty crazy. They have definitely spent some time there

 

[Bill]

My one and only apple tree (in the yard) is covered in those. I had to cut one of split trunks out this year. Ants got in the holes and went to town.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Would the white latex paint recipe / mixture keep them from drilling ?? ( the one used to prevent sun-scald ) Holes are def. from a sap sucking woodpecker.

 

[Lot2Learn]

I had a similar problem a while ago on a younger tree than yours and I decided to wrap mine in window screen that I had available...seems to have worked.

 

[TNTurkey]

Nice idea about the window screen. I've heard that a mixture of clay and cow manure will also discourage them. Screen is cleaner!