North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[tanis cuff <tanistanis@hotmail.com>]

I can confirm all this.  Even the gauge of wire: 16 is too flimsy unless more 
fence-posts, and 12 is too difficult to cut a lot of.  
 
Six foot tall woven fence is a bit too top-heavy to work with, and the 5' 
rolls fit into more vehicles.  I have use 4' tall, but the hoops around young 
trees must be larger/ radius plus branch length must be wider than the length 
of a deer neck!
 
Alan works in higher visibility sites than I do.  If eye-sore is not an 
issue, deer can be disuaded w/ some rather sad & rusty fencing.  You might 
need an extra fence post to hold it up, tho.  Also, not much is needed to 
keep bucks from damaging tree bark w/ their antlers.
 
Off-topic: The most impressive deer sighting I've had is when twin bucks 
matured in the neighborhood, and one day I saw them grazing side-by-side.  
They looked up at me, but with bodies facing away they had to look over their 
rumps.  They were mirror images of eachother.  It was an incredible "Oh, for 
a camera!" moment, but later I figured everyone would have thought it a 
Photoshop trick.
 


________________________________
> Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:02:03 -0500
> From: alandhaigh@gmail.com
> To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [NAFEX] deer protection for fruit trees
>
> I install a lot of home orchards in areas where the deer populations remind 
> you of being on a game safari in Kenya. I have had 8 point bucks within a 
> stones throw admire my work as I planted succulent young apple, mulberry 
> and Asian pear trees amongst all the other somewhat less attractive fruit 
> trees that will be in the mix. The deer run in herds like antelopes and 
> only bow-hunting is permitted in most areas I work.
>
> I protect smaller trees with about a 10' length of 5' tall, 14 g. 
> galvanized wire fencing and a single post to create individual rings for 
> each tree. The wire fencing can be secured to itself by hooking its wire to 
> itself in 2 or 3 places from top to bottom so the rings are easily opened 
> to tend to the trees. In worse predation areas I very rarely have to use 
> 12' (circumference) rings and 3 posts for particularly attractive cultivars 
> like the Mutsu apple, mulberries and Asian pears.
>
> Low branches are eaten by the deer when they reach outside of protection 
> which encourages upward growth inside the fencing. After a couple of years 
> the fencing can be removed and I protect the trunks from buck antlers with 
> 3' rings around the trunks from pieces of the initial fencing. The deer do 
> a pretty good job of keeping the trees trained above the browse line but 
> fruit laden branches must sometimes be crutched or tied to keep the deer 
> from tearing them off the tree.
>
> This means that a lot of the fruit must be harvested from a stepladder, but 
> on the bright side, the deer eat all the drops, lessening apple fly maggot 
> pressure (at least that's my theory, as this is a nonexistent pest in my 
> orchards). It also means that the orchards allow more open space for child 
> play and mowing the lawn.
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