Tragedy

I checked on my Hosui Asian Pear yesterday, due to bear for the first time, and loaded with fruit even after I thinned.

Every single one had been picked off. I’m pretty sure the local groundhog is to blame; a few twigs had been broken, and I’ve seen him climbing mulberry trees to eat the leaves.

Just needed to vent. Next year, I’ll try to come up with some mechanisms to discourage climbing, and perhaps do some trapping as well.

7 Likes

ugh, the worst man. you need need to trap that guy and dispose of it one way or another.

2 Likes

Groundhogs work during the day. Raccoons and Opossums do damage at night. Do you know whether or not you also have these nasty night pests?

1 Like

Sorry to hear it- it’s just so frustrating!

2 Likes

I’m sure we have all of those in the area, but I’ve only ever seen the groundhog.

I suppose the tree branches weren’t bent the way the mulberries are after he’s through, so maybe it was one of the lighter pests you mention.

1 Like

If you use a night camera, you will find out for sure. Raccoons have done more physical damage to my trees than groundhogs. They could care less if they break branches to get to fruit.

Of these 3, I hate raccoons the most.

2 Likes

not as bad as you but the birds stole my 1st ever cherries off my juliet and romeo. was only 10 but i was so looking to tasting them. weren’t even half red when they took them!

2 Likes

Groundhog fertilizer for the garden! Best collards and winter squash ever!

6 Likes

I would have had dozens of pears. Probably more than I should have left on the tree.

Since the tree is only around 5 years old and isn’t going to be doing any more fruit production this year, should I focus on giving it more nitrogen so it can grow out further? What would position it well for next year?

1 Like

We installed an electric fence on a timer. Starts with a 16 inch tall welded wire fence. Then every 6 inches hot wires up to 5 feet.

The 16 in wire fence to keep grass away from lower hot wire.

2 Likes

Sorry to hear that. I feel for you as I am having the exact same problem now. My Korean Giant is barren, stripped clean before they even were near ripe. I think I have a groundhog issue as I have had several sightings and no raccoon sightings recently. There are lots of broken limbs which means something bigger than a squirrel.

So far my groundhog trap has caught nothing. I am going to move it to a new spot soon. One thing I did which seems to have helped is on my front peach trees I wrapped them in masking tape on the trunks and painted with tanglefoot. I did it in a spot to make it hard to jump or step over, it was several feet off the ground and maybe 6-8" of wrapped area… Since that time there have been no major branch breakages or losses on those trees, and the breakage has shifted to my rear orchard which I did not treat this way. I probably need to do that on more trees. Has anyone else tried tanglefoot for groundhogs and the like?

3 Likes

I am sorry for your loss. I know how frustrating it could be. All the Asian pears on my first tree were stripped clean by squirrels in one day. My youngest sister in Missouri just told me that she gave up on planting fruit trees. She made a cylinder out of chicken wire and put on one branch of the pear tree, hoping she could save some to taste. Somehow the squirrels still got them. Unripe Asian pears are inedible so there is no point in harvesting them early. There is one consolation: there are so many wild American persimmons in her area and the squirrels don’t care for them, so she will settle for that. I hope you will all find some ways to stop the intruders and save the fruits. I am putting hardware cloth over some parts of the fence now and it deters the squirrels, but not the rats.

1 Like

If it’s any consolation, my pear tree is also bearing for the first time this year and your post motivated me to buy and install a baffle on the trunk. You probably saved my pears, because we have raccoons like crazy here.

My tree is pruned so there are no branches until 5’ high to keep it out of reach of the deer, so I bought a 4’ section of 10 inch round metal HVAC duct and clipped it together around the trunk.

8 Likes

Can you post a pic of your fruit tree baffle so that the rest of us less crafty folks can learn from you, please? I have had an orchard for about 5 years now with the critters getting all but a few fruits. I have a solar electric fence but somehow the fence gets grounded out between weekly visits. I am looking for anything anyone has tried that seems to work!

3 Likes

My first guess would be a flock of crows. They’ll definitely break smaller branches on Asian pear trees.

Sorry for the late reply, but here’s a pic of my baffle. Nothing fancy, it’s just a 10 inch round piece of duct, 4 feet long. You can get it at any hardware store, and it takes about 30seconds to attach around the trunk. The downside is that your tree cannot be close to any other tree that the critters could jump into it from, and it has to have a fairly long straight trunk with no branches.

7 Likes

Thanks, BigDoug03. It does look very simple and doable. And if the apples on the ground are any indication of success, it seems like you have been able to keep fruit in the trees until they ripen and fall. This will be my go to fix for the next year, along with an electric fence. It seems like you have to try to outwit the critters every step of the way!

1 Like

Has anyone had problems with the trunk overheating in the metal tube like that?

1 Like