Ontario Fruit Explorers

["Biz Storms" <biz.storms@sympatico.ca>]

Hey Tom,

Last autumn I painted above the tree guards and the lower banches of all my 
trees with Ropell, to protect from sunscald and wildlife. ( I think that's 
the name. ) It's actually white latex paint that has thiram added to it, as 
a rodent repellent and deer deterent. It worked. Many trees alone one edge 
of the orchard, next to a wooded area, had the tips chewed off. Just a few 
tips, from a row of trees, with all the tips along the outside edge. You 
could still see the hoofprints as they walked along, trying to find a tree 
that wasn't protected. You could see the tracks then veer diagonally, 
through the centre of the orchard, with tips "sampled" here and there. Then 
the exit tracks, as they smelled the bird feeder. None of the trees had any 
nibbles that I could see from bunnies or voles, either. So their attempts 
had to have been quite minimal. On the other hand, the deer ransacked all 
the cedars, and many of the shrubs. Between the white paint, and the spring 
dormant oil treatment, budding was noticeably delayed, which helped with all 
the late cold spells. Now that things are growing, the paint is just flaking 
off, where it wasn't washed off from the spring rains.

Did you get that stupid bout of hail yesterday? It arrived after lunch, 
about ten minutes of pea sized hail pellets, along with driving rain.

Happy grafting.
Cheers, Bizmark.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>
To: <labruscagrape@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 28, 2005 9:22 AM
Subject: [OFEX] Lady


> Hi Biz,
>
> Do you paint your trees white for sunscald protection?
>
> Just unwrapped the Lady scion you sent me, and it has a lot of what looks 
> like white paint on it.
>
> Thanks,
> Tom
>
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