Have you seen what bear can do to a fruit tree?
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Nope. Moose are one thing, and it is your fault if you fail to fence as you should. Bears on the other hand are harder to fence from but it seems people do not put up with them. I mean there are bears all over the place in Alaska but the last time I heard of one near the more populated neighborhoods full of orchards and vegetable gardens was 2 years ago. I wonder why…
Our bears aren’t as big as yours, but basically they break every branch climbing up. We hardly ever see the bears too, but I have lived in places where they would creep in at night to rip up everyone’s trash.
Well, deer can’t climb and mulberry trees tend to grow very fast, but in my region they seem to enjoy their leaves as much as anything I’ve ever grown and the only tree I ever lost to deer on my own property was a small IE mulberry completely defoliated by a deer in late summer- apparently it left the tree with too little energy to properly harden off- up until then everything was being spent on new growth. Once any species gets above the browse line (which varies site to site) the main danger is buck rubs, which are unpredictable for me. Usually bucks go after young trees but I’ve seen terrible damage on middle aged ones as well.
So far, they’ve never browsed paw-paws, figs, persimmons or black currants here, except for an especially sweet Russian black currant- apparently not enough cat piss smell. They do like chestnut leaves, incidentally.
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Agreed on the browse line factor and how easily they reach tender new growth. Mulberries don’t grow that fast here. I always put a low metal cage around them but was surprised the deer seem to ignore them. Up until a year ago I would have said they leave figs alone entirely, then after dieback from a late frost they ate the late spring regrowth on a couple. Seems like a very specific timing issue for only one area. Likewise, they only rub some of my trees but will really tear them up, usually those on the edges near the wooded areas but leave others in the open alone. I hope to never learn first hand about moose or bear damage, but I learned a little ole armadillo can make a pretty nasty impact scraping off low bark too. Your tree can be fine after many years and suddenly one day you find it looking like it barely survived a frat party.
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A hungry deer will put anything in their stomach to ward off starvation, even plants that will kill them in the long run with their toxicity. Native red cedar is one such plant, I was told by a former teacher. The NY Botanical garden got stewardship of a big property north of me from the Audubon Society for researching what was killing deer on the property. To many deer and not enough winter food, driving the deer to consume the cedar which killed them.
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Can’t kill enough of the hooved rats here to make a difference. Winter to late spring, I’ll see as many as 50 in the fields here around the house, most evenings.
I never used to have deer issues, but in 2007, there were two orphaned little fawns - the doe died in an EHD outbreak, that grew up in the orchard. I shoulda killed and eaten them then, but they’ve given rise to a population that frequents it far too often - and usually at night, when I can’t see them to shoot.
Uncaged young mulberries don’t stand a chance. They’ll keep them
Anything less than about 5 inch diameter, regardless of species, uncaged, is ‘fair game’ for buck rubs in the fall.
Seems they also love those big, just-opening terminal buds on shellbark/shagbark hickories and pecans… was out checking grafts this morning… one from last spring was well along into opening up just a couple of days ago… all of its expanding leaves are now gone… but they didn’t touch the ones lower down the trunk, from the rootstock… just the one big terminal from the growing graft.
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I found nothing with small stems is safe from deer. Contrary to what others said I had 4 just planted paw paw this year. All of the paw paw got so much damage from animals they were not worth keeping. Can’t say what did it but two were broken at the top and two were broken at a little above the graft. With how small paw paw are when sold I almost wonder if it was squirrels. Same with the raspberries and blackberry plants I have had. Deer or other animals have browsed on those to. I have found the only way that my deer will not eat my bark is to have the trees a certain diameter or protect the plant with netting.
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Sorry to hear it. I’m pretty excited to grow pawpaws, so far, so good.
Deer (and other critters) seem to be highly unreliable. I expect all the feedback to be on some sort of confidence interval, such that, you can never be sure a deer won’t just act different this time.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen damage to my pomegranates. But someone in Southern CA told me that their pomegranates are munched heavily by mule deer. Maybe it’s a species difference, not sure
glad im in a open area here as moose just usually pass though. 5 years ago my father had his prized 8ft apple pruned to a trunk by a bull moose then in fall another came back and rubbed the bark off the same tree… he swore it was the same bull. bear love to scratch their backs on whippy saplings. they reach back and pull it over their shoulder with their paw. my brother lost a expensive maple like that .they are fond of apples later in the fall so usually most trees have shed their apples by then.
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Can’t sat weather it is a species difference of deer or it is because the paw paw were outside their native zone in my case. I am not in a humid climate like a Arkansas or a Tennessee.
Is not species difference, hunger makes all the difference. When they run out of everything else they start eating bark. In places where Bamby is protected they end up overpopulating and starving to death, themselves and all the other critters that depended on the forests they mowed down.
Yeah I don’t think the neighbors would think kindly of me shooting a shotgun at a deer in this neighborhood. There is grass up in the mesa but that is the only other food source than the gardens of homes here.
That’s what bows were invented for.
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My deer love asian persimmons, in particular the non-astringent ones. They also munch on the foliage. They usually don’t eat my pawpaws, but some years they have gone after the fruits on the ground. They never eat fig or pomegranate fruits, but will eat pomegranate leaves and dormant fig shoots.
Anything I didn’t mention above they want to eat both leaves and fruits on.
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One observation I have had so far this year is that the two-year old potted apple rootstocks that I have are top choice for my deer. I bet if you were to just buy a bunch of rootstocks or propagate cuttings and line them up near your apple trees the deer will eat those first because they are easier to reach. I only wish I had some cherry rootstocks potted up because they are getting stripped bare.
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Deer seem to be very unpredictable. Plant unprotected at your own risk
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