Your stunting may not be from roots being eaten, but from excessively loose soil from all the tunneling. Long past in my CA life, gophers used to do that to me with fig trees even though they apparently don’t eat the roots. I’d revive the trees by growing them in a well and filling it with water as I tamped things down with my bare feet, firming wet soil around the roots. It was sandy soil.
Pine voles are mostly subterranean root eaters, but they usually do more than just stunt a tree.
Voles remind me of hamsters. Short tails. Grey fur. They are kind of cute…vs the typical house mouse that is smaller with a long tail. I kill them all.
Voles are more common here–they are very easy to find because they’ll make little runways in the grass, i do kill house mice (garage) a few times a year. They get in and think they are going to start a family… Mass trapping works very well. I’ve put out 8 to 10 traps at once.
Voles are best baited with small pieces of apple. House mice seem to set traps off better with peanut butter. The easy set plastic traps are a life saver.
Pine voles are much different than meadow voles, and most of the year are said not to come to the surface for bait. Special underground bait stations are often used but I have been able to control them on the surface in fall when they come up for the ample food on the soils surface. Pine voles treat trees like gophers- when they eat their roots trees tilt with no support and often die- or get stunted for several years. Unlike gophers, they girdle the larger roots and don’t eat the whole thing.
They are so cute though
In early spring as the snow melts…you can see the tunnels they made through the snow banks. Amazing how they can survive all winter. I use hardware cloth around all my trees…voles+rabbits=dead trees.
My voles are chubby. They see their reflection in my small pond and dive right in and commit volecide. One evening I saw one pulling roots of a raspberry bush right out of the ground . He did not live much longer.