I try to keep my trees caged until they are above deer browse. My pawpaws are growing slowly and have been hogging cages. It would be nice to move them to something else. I’ll have to think about that. I think they’re robust enough to withstand the sampling nibbles. Maybe I’ll remove from the one that doesn’t have any fruit this year to see.
I finally took the cages off of the Monkey puzzle trees after the leaders got 6 feet tall. I don’t think the deer will browse it, but if the bite the leader off it could be catastrophic and they were a gift for my wife that I delivered a year or two late, so didn’t want to chance it.
The Yuzu is so thorny it seems like it should be safe too, I haven’t noticed grazing through the gaps like the do on the apples.
I guess I’m just lucky, in 10 years that I’ve been growing commercially they have chewed on exactly 3 tomato plants and 0 potatoes. I usually plant potatoes right next to the tree like they live in. They also never touch brassicas even tender Asian ones. We also never worry about corn or cucurbits, but they do tend to eat a couple melons and squash here and there, but never leaves.
They also never nibble mature apple trees for some reason even if the growth is hanging right in front of them. They will eat up to about 5 feet on younger ones.
Good to hear, what repellent do you use? I’m putting in a cherry orchard next year and fencing our property would be very complicated.
They certainly are a funny creature, I only protect peaches from rubbing. They’re planted right next to where they live and have never had a single bite. One orchard is 20 years old and the other is newer. They go right past them to my apples though.
One thing I’ve noticed has saved mine from rubs lately is having Brussels sprouts planted in their path. They will annihilate a dozen or so plants, but I’ll take that over peach limbs every day. I’m wondering if sunflowers would also make a good sacrificial barrier
In my Southern Rocky Mountain foothills neighborhood, they go for apples. Then my European plums.
Not so interested in peaches or apricots.
I make Cayenne pepper “tea” with hot water and coffee filters. After it cools, since I’m spraying anyway, I put it in a sprayer with an appropriate dose of Monopotassium phosphate, chelated iron and as a sticking agent, a few drops of that Dr. Bronners’s hippie soap that my wife likes. For the trees bearing fruit I add “Surround.”
It works well, but I live in a dry climate.
You can buy the Cayenne pepper in extra large sizes at Sam’s Club.
In the forest, they look like huge bonsai. Nibbled all over, with numerous attempts at forming a central leader. They look more like bouquets if you imagine leaders as flower stems and canopy as flowers, than natural bushes.
It is true, though that in nature cornelian cherries prefer Southwest facing slopes and ridges which are incidentally favoured by deer and mouflon. So it may be more of a “crime of convenience” than a matter cf choice.
I was getting ready to plant a new area of the property this winter, so I moved 3 sour cherry trees in planters to this area in Dec. I figured I didn’t need to put them in a secured area as they had no leaves. I came back to check on them a month or so later and one of the trees was completely gone from the 20 gallon grow bag. I was stunned at first, wondering what the hell happened. I found the tree about 30 feet away on the ground. It had been yanked clean from the soil, but didn’t even look like the roots or branches had been eaten. I guess a deer tried munching on the branches, didn’t like the taste, and out of spite ripped the tree from its planter and dumped it after dragging it a ways.
After looking over the roots (seemed untouched), I decided to replant it again. After replanting I put a small fence around the trees to prevent more damage. I don’t know how long that tree was out of the ground, but it could have been weeks to a month. Luckily our winters are mostly wet and rarely below freezing, so it bounced right back in the spring.
Lesson learned, just because a fruit tree has no leaves, doesn’t mean the deer won’t attack it just out of spite.
I don’t think it was spite. Deer don’t really bite. They have only bottom teeth. So they grab a shoot or twig between the bottom teeth and hard palate, then rip. My guess is that because the cherry tree was so small, the ripping motion pulled it out of the pot. Then with the tree out of the pot, it was even harder to break the branch, so the deer kept yanking and yanking. Eventually the tree ended up far away.
Recently my daughter put some pots of irises in an area of my yard, prior to planting. A few days later, a few of the pots were 10-15 yards away, half eaten. Similar scenario, I think – the deer tugging on the iris leaves moved the pots.
I’ve about 100 fruiting trees and bushes on my property of all different sorts. My experience is essentially a summary of this thread with only minor exception.
I’m pretty sure they will eat pretty much anything Rosaceae. I haven’t successfully grown an aronia yeat as they get shorter and shorter each year. The younger apples of any kind get browsed heavily. The pears are mostly molested only by leaf munching insects. Anything sorbus, especially aria gets hit hard. If it will naturally hybridize with sorbs, it gets eaten. They tend to leave my hazels alone, and medlar are hit or miss. They haven’t discovered my assorted quince yet. And my Pawpaw need no protection from them.
I think the pawpaw start so late and end so early that the time when deer are the most desperate is when those trees have no leaves.
I have found temporary fences keep them out most of the time, but they do just jump over it. I have natural barriers on the North and East sides of my property, so the fencing is incomplete in those area, but they jump the natural barriers too. Most of my fence issues are when they get in and then are unsure how to get out. I have a “funnel” on each side of my house that is closed off with those square tomato cages in a fence panel configuration so that when they need to find a way out, they can knock those over/aside/etc without bending my thrifty little posts. This also lets me know it’s time to evaluate damage.
There is a lot of nature and variety around me, so most of my protection can be passive. Just like humans, convenience is king for the deer. A bush right here that is less than ideal or healthy is better than one over there most days that requires effort, but one day the craving makes the effort worth while. And areas free of predators are desireable for shelter, so that close to shelter is hit harder than the things you have to risk life and limb for. (The exception being cars: I can’t be convinced that they don’t run out in front of them so often because the headlights illuminate the ground enough that the increased surety eclipses the understanding of the unnatural threat, at least for the younger ones.
I have found that the trees they prefer the most recover faster if I use my pruners/secateurs to nip off the ripped twig ends. I assume it is some of both, but I’m not sure if the biggest gain here is the ripped tissue being cleansed, or whatever nastiness they have added from other bushes they have recently bowsed. Deer do not appear to have any sense of oral hygiene.
I assume they lick their own butts while they’re back at their deer hive gloating over destroying my stuff.
Their summer pruning “suggestions” for my apple tree, followed by my cleaning up the tears with clean cuts, got the tree covered in spurs for the next year. (For the squirrels to steal 100% of the not even a little close to ripe apples. Squirrels are going to have to go live on a farm upstate next year.)
New member here. Very southern Indiana zone 6B and very rural. There are huge numbers of deer in this area. I have found my pawpaws to be completely safe from deer, even though they are in an open field across my gravel road where herds of deer bed down every night in the tall grass. They also never touch a potato plant. For the 13 years I have lived here they never really did any damage to tomatoes or squash or cucumbers. This year, for some strange reason, they suddenly decided to repeatedly eat down all tomato plants and squash leaves, as well as cucumbers. Their favorite vegetable is a young tender bean plant of any type. Also they pruned all my blackberry primocanes down to 2-3 feet, despite having acres of wild blackberries to eat which did well this year and had tons of berries on them. My blackberries are thornless and the wild are not, so maybe that made a difference. I planted a black current this spring and after one nibble they left it alone. I did put cages around my apples, pears and romance cherries until they were over 4-5 feet tall and then removed the cages and let the deer keep the lower branches pruned. They never seemed to like peaches or pear branches much but do love the lower hanging or dropped pears and apples. I planted 2 jujubes this spring, which I am so excited about, but I gave them a tall sturdy cage as I don’t know how fond deer are of jujube. They are thriving and are starting to outgrow the cage. Most oddly, my deer are starting to feed all day and not just during low light times. I see the mamas and their babies wandering through the garden and my small orchard all day long. I do have a small pond down from the orchard so that probably attracts them also. Looks like I am going to have to up my fencing game! And maybe get another dog. I had 3 big dogs (the last one went to doggie heaven last Thanksgiving ) that roamed the property but did come in at night. I think their urine and predator smell may have had some deterrent on the deer.
) that roamed the property but did come in at night. I think their urine and predator smell may have had some deterrent on the deer.