Interesting take about rounded rocks being preferred. I used gravel that is jagged (driveway gravel) hoping that the sharpness would deter the pine voles.
Yeah great point about the earlier apple growers.
That was my other question for you in regards to limiting the root growth with hardware cloth.
The area where my trees are planted is completely riddled with vole tunnels and holes. I have spent a lot of dough on my southern heritage apple orchard. Itâs become a real passion project. So realizing the vole problem has been a big time bummer. Not too optimistic of my success here.
I went to the apple sale at Horne Creek farm near Winston Salem last weekend and the orchardist mentioned keeping the area around the trees free of any vegetation cover. Keeping it bare soil helps potentially? However after reading The apple grower by Micheal Phillips I was excited to have a biodiverse ground cover to help with nutrients for the trees. I guess I wonât be doing that. Last year I did a soil test and the soil came back very very low for phosphorus so I originally thought this was the problem. Little did I know then. I also do not want to put poison down or anything but the problem appears to be bad. Iâve seen some black rat snakes last summer so maybe they will help out when the area is mowed more regularly. One step up two steps back.
I definitely feel your pain trying to establish an heirloom apple orchard. I have bought trees from Jason at Horne Creek too. The Joyners at Big Horse Creek in Ashe County have also been wonderful to buy from.
I have mostly gone with no mulch in an effort to make the area less hospitable for the voles. The thing that may now be turning the corner (knock on wood) is my the strategy of planting garlic chives and grape hyacinth in quantity in a mass around each tree. Apparently both of these along with garlic are a bummer to the voles. The hyacinths I had tons that were overgrowing an area around my house and the garlic chives I bought a 5lb bag off Amazon and scattered generously around the trees. It may be helping more than anything else that I have tried so far - or I have just been lucky and the little suckers are leaving my trees alone.
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novole apple rootstock is supposed to be pine and meadow vole resistant
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Good info, thanks!
Thanks for the heads up. I just bought some garlic chive seeds. Iâll start them and then plant them around my apple trees. Gotta go at this problem multiple ways.
Do you maintain the area around your trees regularly? Seems like mowing helps with meadow voles but not so much with pine voles?
Some of the darn holes go over a foot deep?
Everything I read says pine vole tunnels are 2-4 inches in depth. I just canât get over how many holes there are in my apple orchard .
I do think making a noxious stink zone will help make it less appealing for the voles to go after the adjacent apple tree roots. I wonder too about keeping everything bare around the trees as that mostly seems to be mentioned in terms of dealing with Meadow Voles which are above ground vs. the subterranean Pine Voles who probably couldnât care less about whatâs on the surface.
I have partly excavated the runs and places a mouse trap in them baited with a chunk of apple (they ignored peanut butter). In the colder months I have managed to trap a few but that is probably not doing a lot to work in the whole colony.
Bonus on the garlic chives is that we can use them in the kitchen!
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Here is an update on the gravel experiment. it has been three weeks since I dug 3-4 inch deep trenches around the small apple trees filled them with gravel and put gravel around the trees.
I did not observe any new pine vole tunnels around the trees that I put gravel around. Which is encouraging. The few trees that I removed the mulch and just left as bare soil around the trees. had new Pine Vole tunnels.
So maybe its working? Or the critters are actively munching on grass roots instead of the apple roots? I will continue to update and see how this journey goes. Thanks again.
I also planted garlic chives around the apple trees.