Damage to bark on cherry tree

General Fruit Growing
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Hey everyone. First time poster, with a major issue.

I have planted about 15 fruit trees. Cherries apples plums pears and mulberries.

I have had non stop issues with deer ( I assume ) wrecking my trees. Today though, its a bit worse than a lead or a major branch being broken. They stripped a major amount of bark off the tree.

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I assume its dead, nothing I can find for fixing this type or bark damage anywhere online, and its in a full 360 around the tree.

I just want to know, was it actually deer…

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Yep, that’s a deer rub; or a really PO’d neighbor with a rasp lol.
There is something you could try to save the tree, but it will cost you some branches. It would be more of an experiment and judging by the size of the tree you’d probably come out ahead just replanting. But you could do a couple/few bridge grafts to try save it. You will need to fence your remaining trees pronto or that buck will find more along his scrape line.

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That sure looks like a buck rub to me. It is early… but some bucks may be shedding their velvet and doing some early rubbing.

Hope it recovers.

That is why I apply cattle panel cages to my fruittrees. Many of mine would look just like that without them.

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TNHunter

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Thanks guys, yeah buck rub makes sense I live in a small town where we “Can’t” deal with them and 2 bucks have been roaming my 2 acres often.

I’ll look into that fencing and see if I can do those branch grafts.