This past winter I had a vole get inside a hardware cloth cage on a nice 2 yr chum sucker, removing bark 2" all the way around, about 2" up from ground. Though disappointing it wasn’t a big loss as I have a lot of chum suckers. When I found it this spring I was just going to cut it off and let it grow another since I wanted one in that spot. Then I remembered a post I’d saved from a NAFEX forum member. This is what she said:
“[Info received by poster from another member] To repair an injury to a tree trunk, create a window screen wire fence around the tree. The size of this should be at least 6” from trunk to screen wire for small tree (1-3” dia.), 8-12” for larger trees. Make sure the screen goes at least 12” above the injury and all the way to the ground. The diagram shows the screen cut at the bottom and flanged out to help the assembly stay in place. Fill inside the screen wire fence to 12” above the injury with fresh sawdust, preferably Pine. Aftercare: Leave in place for 2 years minimum for small trees; up to 6 years for larger trees.
[Her experience] … all the trees were on M111 rootstock. They varied in age, but most were over 4 years old. … two had been girdled [below ground]. The others had various levels of damage, and a few even had damage somewhat above the ground. Some trees were leaning badly due to the root loss from the voles. To save them, we first staked the trees that were leaning. All I had was fresh hardwood shavings, and no window screen., so I proceeded to stack the fresh hardwood shavings around the trees as high as needed (per instructions). I knew that rain, etc. would gradually move the stacked shavings down because there was nothing to hold them, so I planned to restack, but this was not needed much. I did this “stacking” around seven trees.
Results: All the trees were improved by this treatment. The girdled trees did not die, and did grow replacement bark. It seemed that the stacking method also helped with the vole problem. One that was girdled was a Black Limbertwig. It was staked because it had lost so much structure underground that it was easily moved if you put your hand on it. I did not have much faith that it would pull through. Notes state, “If [the sawdust cure] saves the Black Limbertwig, it will be a miracle.” After several years, that tree started bearing fruit. We harvested some this year. The whole thing is counter-intuitive to me (stacking shavings against a trunk), but it worked.”
Well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try. This was early April. I swept up as much fine pine sawdust as I could find in the shop, put a layer of newspaper around inside the hardware cloth cage and filled it with the sawdust. The trunk of this chum was only about a foot before branching and I didn’t have a lot of sawdust but it came about 2" above the girdled area.
The tree did have a significant amount of aphid/ant activity at the ends of all the branches, more than the other plums, but it did fine through the summer and regrew leaves when the aphids abated in August. The ants loved the sawdust hotel. I forgot that the initial instructions were to leave it be for two years so mid August I took the cage off, spreading sawdust and ants around under the tree, not having any real expectations. To my great surprise all I could see was bark. I spread some DE around to knock back the ants so I could get in there to look and sure enough - bark - all around. Lighter color having been out of the sun all summer, and I can feel a small indent at the edges of the girdled area but basically it looks normal and as healthy as the other suckers around. Wow!
Wish I’d tried this on a few other partially girdled trees/shrubs that didn’t fare nearly as well. I’d certainly do it again. Of course, hopefully there will not be any need. Since I’ve had a weasel(s) hanging around the garden/orchard all summer (based on scats) it should be an easier winter that way. But I’ll still be putting hardware cages around everything, and hope for a more “normal” (less than 2 ft) snow year. Sue
