I went into my orchard today and found a number of trees with leaves eaten and limbs broken. I placed a number of trees in the ground last fall and early winter. Everything appeared to be growing well. This is a little frustrating. I understand that deer are a common problem. The one tree with all the broken branches was a least 6 ft tall. Do I try to use grafting tape to repair the branches. There are a number of things that the deer could have went after but they went for the new trees. There was no damage to the garden. I have at least 24 fig trees and they did not touch them. Just needed to vent a little. Thanks.
Sorry to hear about your deer damage. From most accounts, they do not touch figs unless they are desperate. The latex in the leaves and branches deters them.
There are a few threads on here about how to protect against deer, but it sounds like the best long term solution is a fence.
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Deer totally suck and my sympathies are with you. The four legged monsters munched my carmine jewel and two apples last month. Your tree looks healthy so it should hopefuly bounce back. You should check out the deer threads from @scottfsmith. Ive learned a ton from his squirrel and deer posts. it seems lke fences or tree cages are the only true solution. Ive spent a fortune on wire caging to protect mine. Sorry for the loss.
The “Scarecrow” kind of infrared detector connected to an impulse sprinkler does a very good job of scaring away deer, rabbits, dogs, cats, and other unwanted critters. Once we arranged ours and startled the grown daughter of our neighbor because we cut the line too fine! (She was amused after she was startled, thank goodness.)
You can tape and splint branches not totally broken, they can come back - if the deer don’t
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Useless giant antlered rats. Worthless animals.
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Deer routinely browse on fig leaves that the can get to through or over the cages at my property, and they are never desperate.
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Thanks. I will look at the other threads on deer.
Thanks. I am aware that we have deer in our area. I probably got too overconfident. The back of my property is just woods. I will read the posts.
I was wondering if motion lights would help. I am not sure if much will scare the deer here. They just look at you, continue with what they were doing and will not move unless you move toward them, Thanks for the suggestion.
Ok. Great. Thanks.
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the advice and the comments you have help me work through my frustration today. Friday is another day.
Wow I guess there is really nothing they will not eat.
I was going to say the same. You will have to tie them but they can callus back and be saved., kind of like a big graft. I have racoons that break my branches down when the fruit ripens or just before actually. They aren’t as patient as me. Most of the time I cut them but when it’s your whole top of the tree I would splint it. You might have to cut some of the splintered wood so it doesn’t bind and rip when standing it back up.
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Ok. Thanks. I appreciate the advice.
Never had deer trouble befor. But this year they made a visit to my yard. Snacked on my Asian pear. So I set up this cage for it. Can’t make it a long term solution as this is visible from the street and not the nicest sight.
Not sure why deer is visiting me this year. I cut down 11 pine trees on one side. I wonder if that made the yard more visible to them.
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Why cant you leave the cage up? If there arent any ordinances prohibiting it I would be inclined to leave it up year round.
Or at least no complaints
No ordinances. Just would like keep it nice and tidy since this is the front yard. Working on getting the weeds out and reseeding the lawn.
I’ve had them browse up to 6’. They often break the stiff part of the branches when they pull down the higher stuff. Most deer here will not bother with anything over 5’, but I guess there has to be at least one ambitious one every now and then.
What is the rootstock? I you don’‘t want permanent fences, I would recommend semi-dwarf or larger. It’s best to keep it caged and promote vertical growth until it gets above the danger zone (under 6’). Then you can select branches above 5’.