deer eating fruit trees question

[Mitch]

Thanks to Chris from Turkey Creek I have/had some great looking fruit trees started. The deer have found them though and on a couple have basically eaten the tops right off. The trees are tubed but now that they have grown out of the top of the tube, the deer feast away. In this area, I have tons of persimmons that are native, pears, crabs, and regular apples. I'm putting pallets around the trees shaped in a triangle. Got that suggestion from here I have easy access to pallets. Anyway, will the trees that have been eaten down recover? Or do I need to start over?

 

[Neahawg]

Can't say for sure but if they look alive now I imagine they will put out multiple new leaders in the spring. When the tree puts out new growth try to select a new central leader. When I train my trees I just pinch the end off the branches I don't want making the tree put its effort into those I do.

Also if you can get you some fence to put up around those trees I think it protects them better. Even if you get 4 ft by 100ft at 10ft per cage you will have 10 cages that keep the deer off your trees pretty well. I'm not against tree tubes but they need to be at least 5 ft tall to get them past the browse line.

 

[dogdoc]

So only the tops have been eaten that has grown out of the tubes? If so, the trees will be fine.

 

[Mitch]

So only the tops have been eaten that has grown out of the tubes? If so, the trees will be fine.

Yes sir. Just the tops. My tubes are 5 footers. I'll use the pallets I have along with some fencing. See if that keeps them off. My luck, the pallets would fall in on the tree in a hurricane wind. I'll use some sort of brace to keep them from doing that.

 

[Nebraskaz71]

My keiffer pear got the tops ate off 3 times this spring/summer before I got a cage on it. It still grew back 4-5ft taller in 2 months time.

 

[Mitch]

I wanna say that's what the deer ate on mine too...were the keiffer pears. They left some alone but there were 2-3 trees they kept trimmed up pretty good. I'll cage 'em next chance I get with some pallets and some sort of woven wire fence.

 

[Turkey Creek]

As was already said they will grow back, just sucks to lose a years worth of growth. Get em fenced!

 

[cagantpr]

Way back on the old forum, there was a guy called CrazyEd who helped a lot of us work out tree cages using concrete wire. It makes a nice and tidy cage and if you get a 150ft roll on sale, its not too expensive. Each roll can make 5, 30 ft circumference cages, that are approximately 5 feet in diameter. Here is a picture of my version from 2013

 

[cagantpr]

Here is another pic of how they looked new in 2012 before I repeatedly hooked all the T-posts foodplotting around them with the 4-wheeler

 

[Mitch]

awesome! love the pics!

 

[cagantpr]

Live pic from the stand of how they look today. I did my pruning to get the lowest scaffold above the 5 foot cage. I then cut the old cages into 3 sections to make 1 foot diameter hoops. Since these apples are for the deer, I wanted them to fall outside the cage.