Comparing Plantskyd to my own brew for deer resistance

They are pretty fierce here in S. NY as well.

Has anyone had issues with deer repellent attracting scavengers, such as bears?

I would gladly trade deer for bears if they wouldn’t eat all my tomatoes… at least until I saw what damage the bears did instead.

Even after a spray, the dear returned and ate the tomatoes from another patch (although they missed a few close to a pound deep down in the leaves, so I wonder if it is the size or just that they couldn’t see them), plus the top of another Carmine Jewel (the only other one showing real growth of my 3), all the squash blossoms (and trampled the vines) and the leaves off my second Harrow Sweet. I wonder if they’ve been trained to feed in my yard and it will take stronger measures.

I’ll spray again since we’ve had so much rain and this time I’ll make sure to add the soap since I didn’t have it for the first round. But I’m wondering now about putting up rat traps on stakes on the edge of the garden areas and baiting them with peanut butter or one of the two remaining green cherry tomatoes. Anyone try something like that?

Also, does scare tape do anything for deer?

We’ve had so much rain and the nearby woods must be full of lush tasty treats, but they appear to be on a daily lunch buffet schedule now in my yard.

You can put up a quick fence using really strong fishing line (type used for deep sea fishing) strung from rebar stakes which will freak out your dear because they can’t see the line.

When dear are extremely hungry the repellents won’t work.

Any observations on the rain resistance of Plantskyd? It seems like they would have guidelines for reapplying after so many inches of rain. Instead they word things to give the impression that the stuff is effective for months, rain or no rain.

Two weekends ago we had about 4" of rain. I applied the egg solution the weekend before, so I figured I didn’t have any protection after 4" of rain. I was right. Two trees were nailed before I got them resprayed the day after the rain stopped. After 2 weeks of on-off rain almost everyday, it became apparent that don’t really know when I should reapply. My strategy was to respray after rain, but I wasn’t expecting rain almost every day for 2 weeks.

It is not at all effective for months, more like 2 weeks when plants are in active growth. Rain is not the issue. Once they start eating the newer unsprayed leaves they seem to go after some of the older leaves but not enough to kill trees.

Yes definitely not months. Generally I agree with Alan that old growth is pretty much good as by the time the Plantskydd wears off there is new growth which is what they will eat. But that isn’t completely true as several inches of rain will put a big dent in the Plantskydd protection. There are many other factors as well. It also depends a lot on how strongly the deer have honed in on particular things, how desperate they are, etc.

One way you can get Plantskydd to last much longer is make a paste, very dense, and use a paintbrush to fling small blobs into leaves. A blob like that will take a long time to go away compared to the recommended level of dilution.

I just did my first Plantskydd in several years today, one deer seems to have decided they can put up with my motion detector sprinklers. I even had my dog chase her away several times, but she came back. So now she gets some pig blood along with about anything within reach on my property. I am going to keep coverage up very solidly for the next several weeks, probably re-applying in two weeks since this deer has really honed in on me and needs a lengthy deterrent period to break the habit.

Yes, rapid new growth forces more frequent applications. It is the multi-week periods of random downpours that are bugging me. I look for a prediction of several clear days before I apply. Lately, however, we’ve been getting the downpours only few days after I apply. Yesterday we got 3" of rain in 30 minutes or less at sunset. I wasn’t expecting anything like that based on the predictions. I assume the egg I applied this weekend is gone now. Since nature isn’t on my side, I definitely will be ring-fencing trees that wouldn’t be able to handle deer stripping.

We got a similar thing here the night before. I looked at my Plantskydd and the dense blobby bits are still hanging in there strongly. I did both some dense stuff and some more diluted (well, I didn’t mix it well so it got more dense as I went along and was very dense by the end). I am just going to put dense blobs on this coming weekend and hope that lasts several more weeks. You don’t need to coat the whole leaf, the deer won’t want to eat any of the blood so one small blob on a leaf is all you need.

But if you are doing that why not just make your own concoction with dried blood and a sticker. I’m paying for its ability to mix with water and run through my sprayer.

That sounds like an idea. Too bad I just bought more Plantskydd or I would try it now. Apparently Pantskydd has some special vegetable oil binder so it stays on longer, but if I could get close it would be worth it to brew my own.

I feel the paint brush flick method is superior to the spray method. I still see a ton of spots on my plants after many inches of rain. It takes about the same amount of time to cover, I use a big brush and with the right flick I can cover 8’ in one flick. “Its all in the wrist” :smile: I rarely stop walking when I am putting it down.

PS here is the MSDS:

Active Ingredient:
dried blood (porcine and/or bovine) 99.84%

Inert Ingredient:
vegetable oil 0.16%

… seems pretty easy to brew it up, also I could throw in some nufilm for a little extra stick action.

I bet if you used a good sticker it would work just as well. I mix their formulation with Tactic anyway. I’m going to order some blood right now.

Now I have fantasies of painting my trees with deer blood. :smile:

I think I will try making a thicker mix and applying with brush like Scott does.

hang venison steaks from the branches…

I mentioned to the intern one day that she should bathe the raw chicken first in flour then in the blood of its own children, she looked mortified until i mentioned i was talking about eggs.

This topic is great! Alan – what concentration of dried blood to water did you use? Did you use blood meal or somethung different? Did younuse wholeceggs or just yokes? I saw a 4 legged barron the other day and need to taje soneboroactive steps to repel them.

Fish emulsion works for me–and I suppose I get some fertilization out of it as well. Even though I’m covered up in deer, I get little damage to my trees, but they love young blackberry leaves and lot of my veggies. Of course, the fish emulsion seems to last only until the next rain. I also wonder if it might attract 'coons. However, I’ve seen little damage from them.

I use the entire egg although I suppose the yoke carries most of the scent that repels them but the white is additional sticker, at least.

I’ve not used straight blood for years- plant skyd is expensively processed to dissolve in water (with lots of agitation.

I used to put blood in plastic bottles filling part way and putting a few holes in to let smell out but not much rain in and hung them from trees. Works great until you accidentally bump a bottle and get some blood rot on you.

Alan – have you tried spraying a post with plant skyd / dried blood and putting that between trees? Curious if I need to actually spray the plant or if putting a blood soaked post nearby would be sufficient?

No I’ve only sprayed the trees.