dreambig@84
Active Member
How do keep animals from digging holes down around your fruit tree roots? I have them caged and truck protected? Should I put rock around tree? What animal is doing this?
Holes around pear trees
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You may have a grub problem. Id out some grub killer down
I would add stone mulch of some kind for sure. The rougher/more jagged the better.
I’ve planted a couple thousand trees (hardwoods, pines, spruces, shrubs, cedars and fruit trees) and have light sandy soil so I have to fight moles/voles and anything that tunnels.
The fruit trees (~100 total) are the only ones that get stone mulch and so far I haven’t lost any or noticed any loss to tunneling/digging near the roots.
Might not help your established trees but for future ones…I also scalp the sod away so the tree sits a few inches lower than the surrounding grade. This is purely anecdotal but my theory is if something’s tunneling shallow toward my fruit tree he pops out at or above my rock mulch. I have aluminum screen protecting the trunk and it can’t tunnel down through the rock and turns away??
I’ve planted a couple thousand trees (hardwoods, pines, spruces, shrubs, cedars and fruit trees) and have light sandy soil so I have to fight moles/voles and anything that tunnels.
The fruit trees (~100 total) are the only ones that get stone mulch and so far I haven’t lost any or noticed any loss to tunneling/digging near the roots.
Might not help your established trees but for future ones…I also scalp the sod away so the tree sits a few inches lower than the surrounding grade. This is purely anecdotal but my theory is if something’s tunneling shallow toward my fruit tree he pops out at or above my rock mulch. I have aluminum screen protecting the trunk and it can’t tunnel down through the rock and turns away??
Daver
PMA Member
I would like to hear more about the stone mulch please. I have planted various apple and pear trees at my farm through the years and if there is ONE thing I have learned it is that don't even plant them if you aren't going to go nuclear on protecting them. Whether it is coons breaking branches on younger trees getting fruit from smaller branch structure, who knows what digging them up or around them, you name it chewing or rubbing the bark off of the trunk, etc, etc. It almost seems like nature is aligned against the fruit tree planters of the world.
Now then, I have established a small orchard at our house and have placed some mulch around the new trees and was planning on adding more...but for reasons already shared...I was trying think of a better approach than conventional mulch. A ring of small diameter stone sounds intriguing. Hmmm...
Do you still to need fight weeds in that stone, say in years 2, 3 and beyond? Presumably, the stone "melts" into the soil over the years?? It's not like you have to dig it up in future, per se?
Nothing special regarding the stone…usually cheap road stone from the quarry in bulk. I’ve heard of others using limestone screenings as well. When I make the window screen protectors I fold about an inch outward at the bottom and cut 3 tabs so the rock holds it in place.
I put good weed mat under the rock as well because it’s also helpful to just lift the corners when I want to fertilize.
Weed mats were mostly cut to 2’x2’ and I put about 2 - 5 gallon buckets of rock per tree. Wish I would’ve gone a little bigger because not much comes up through it. My oldest trees with this setup are from spring 2023.
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