Those posts by each tree will definitely attract bucks. I use old rebar fence posts. I’ve been weeding and mulching so far (on year 3 now). Also instead of wire fence, I use poly wire, much easier to manage by myself. My hope is to use the orchard as a lane to move my cows to the summer pasture. So probably just during spring and then fall each year
I have goats (miniature) and goats like destroying trees recreationally I found the only thing to stop them was cages made from discarded pallets nailed together in a square. And then I mulch the ground inside.
Hi ! I live on a small homestead where I have planted around 60 fruits trees. There are no easy solution to the problem. Over the years I tried many solutions, and some failed dramatically, given the cost and amount of time dedicated. Electric fencing DID NOT work. Individual plastic protection worked to a certain degree. They now have stopped bothering me since I live on site. Luckily, local hunters do a great job and trim the population quite a bit. Dogs are great. Deers tend to leave the places they get consistently chased from, and end up bothering somebody else. Trouble is, once they have established themselves somewhere, they tend to come back over and over again. I feel for you, it is very frustrating to see your hard work being destroyed. As far as mulching, you might want to consider planting 5 to 6 roots of comfrey WHEN you plant the trees. They will grow eventually into large plants that will form a cluster around the tree, that you can chop and drop up to 4 times a year. Their root system is great at pumping water up and does not compete with the trees' roots. Once every four years, I divide them and remove about half of each, as they tend to become gigantic. Compared to my neighbour's trees that are just weeded out, my trees are much larger and healthier. No grass can grow wherever they set in Another thing is sowing a row of a mix of rye and faba beans (Vicia faba L) for every row of tree. I sow very densely and chop the plants in june. I use this thick mulch to complete the comfrey choppings. Wood chips are great, but it's quite expensive and very labour intensive. It is degraded extremely fast too. I prefer growing the mulch right on site. Hope it helps. Good luck.
What an interesting comment. Thank you for sharing your experience. Regarding dogs, I have a young Golden Retriever who has deterred Deer from around the house. However, now the deer are targeting the fields furthest from the house, so all the dog did was move the problem to another part of the farm! With regards to interplanting other types of crops around the trees, I'm not against the idea, but oddly in various trials, there didn't appear to be much benefit in yields. I haven't quite got my head around why companion planting would not correlate with improved yield. I must revisit this research to see if there is any new commentary. All the best.
Bone sauce will help with keeping The deer and rodents away from your trees. It's something you can make on the farm and you have RU-vid channels like Perma Pastures Farm showing how to make it. Bone sauce is natural and I think you should look into.
Hello Stuart and lovely to hear from you. I've got myself back into the mind set of editing videos and next on the list is an update on the coppicing forest. I hope all is well.
Deer are also a problem for me. I use a heavier gauge wire. They still eat down the new growth and even the young branches. They have been known to push the fencing into the trees to eat the sprouts. Never safe until they grow so tall that they cannot reach. But then also so tall, I cannot reach the fruit. My only solution has been a area perimeter fence, tall enough and bright enough to slow them down. Buffalo NY USA here.
I would make a couple of recommendations. 1, use a tighter weave of wire that the deer can't put their antlers into and 2, mulch heavily around the base of your trees to suppress grass growth. You'll get the benefit of protecting your trees and minimize the burden of trying to trim grass inside the cages. Stephan Sobkowiak of Miracle Orchards has a number of recommendations for practices that you might want to consider incorporating.
Hi Peter. I agree with your comments. The cages are coming down and I've got mulch around the trees. I would like to have a wider area mulched around the trees, but right now I don't have enough woodchip to do that. Hopefully over the coming years I can sort out an affordable solution for mulching around the trees and increase the area mulched.
We have the public health ninnies on the west side of the Atlantic as well. Our time with no livestock is 4 months. There is some regulation someplace that any poop creates a 6 foot radius that nothing can be harvested. I'd like to see them live with a regulation that if bird poop gets on their car, they don't use it for 4 months! There isn't an orchard tree that can meet the bird poop free status for 4 months anywhere.
How very true. Wild birds, badgers, deer, cats, dogs... they are absolutely fine, but cows are chickens... they will kill you. Alas not everyone made it to the front of the queue when they where handing out common sense. Many of those left behind appear to have been mostly employed in writing government policies.
Your orchard fails the standards because you can't keep the deer out. It's not like deer manure does not carry any pathogens. The regulations are blatant nonsense :(
I'm in a similar situation. Compelled to put wire cages around hazels for a grant paid for by people who don't farm. As far as silvopasture orchards are concerned they are meant to diversify grazing farms by putting a relatively small area in trees, not necessarily to optimize the production of a majority orchard property
Hello Willie. The wire cages have been nothing but trouble for me. They create a scaffold for grasses and smoother young trees. It is hard to mow under the wire without hitting the tree with a strimmer. As a result of that you can't easily mulch around the trees. The next issue is that the wire causes scaffolding branches to either get damaged or deflect inwards. It is a pain and I regret availing of the grant.
@@willieclark2256the money is great when you get it, but it is a pain. If you are doing this, keep the wire cage well off the ground to allow you to pull out the grass inside the cage. Use a staple gun to attach the cage, so that you can easily reposition it if needed and don't go hammering steeples into it! Keep an eye on branch development and cut out segments of the wire that are impacting it. Then put a tracking device on each wire cage, because when the deer get at it, you will likely find the cage in another field! All good fun.
I feel your pain on this. My trees are larger and I don't have nearly as many as you, but what has worked for me is a double layer electric fence around the perimeter of the orchard. Creating a moat of sorts with several different electrical lines at various heights and a gap in between seems to confuse the deer and scares them away from trying to jump over it. It's cheap to set up and worth a try. Might allow you to do without those cages. Also, if you haven't already, check out Mark Shepherd's "Restoration Agriculture" for his take on silvopasture and how he gets trees established. His approach is different, but seems to work
Hello Jason. Thanks for your comment. I did try fishing line and for a while it stopped the deer, so maybe the next thing to try is electric fencing, possibly around the rutting season. Depending on the damage this year, I might have to bit the bullet and fit talk wire fences. There is a balancing act between tree looses and the cost of fitting fences. I'm off now to have a look at Mark Shepherds set up. Thank you. All the best.
It's possible that your answer to the deer is a couple of large dogs. A potentially gruesome solution, and they also take up time and money, but effective all the same. Love your videos and interested to see how it all turns out.
Hello Conor. I am looking around for a dog and it will be interesting to see if they will keep the deer at bay. I am thinking about getting a gun dog such as a Gold Retriever and training it to track deer. Deer are fast on their feet, so I can't see the dog actually catching one, but it should keep them on the move if they come near. Thanks for your comment. All the best.
@@GubbFarm agreed - they don’t need to catch one - just scare them off. Recommend Belgian Shepherd, Malinois type. Used by police forces all over the world and very trainable - they’ll scare the bejesus out of most things!
@@GubbFarm maybe also consider a guardian dog, especially if you are planning to have livestock such as turkeys. Maremmas are supposesly trainable to defend poultry.
That idea sprang into my mind, too: get a couple dogs. (For scaring the deer away.) Good luck with all this. It's very interesting to watch your calm consideration of each quandary as it arises. There's no end to them. HEY! There's a Dary in every quandary! ... Ahem.
@@drtootsi I have a Pyrenees I don’t think they are much different from a Maremma it’s the best dog ever doesn’t bark excessively only when something or someone is out of place and wouldn’t hurt any living creature at all
Deer like hazels. If you allow deer access to your sapling trees they will browse as well as rub. After the trees get well established, browse damage will decrease simply because the deer will not be able to reach. Has to be said that my experience is with coppice, not nuts! You would be welcome to view this vid ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pd4A3aIuiLk.html to see some of my experience with deer. The Dorset gate seen in this vid is made of Tenax mesh which is of very low visual impact. I use dead hedges to exclude deer with dorset gates of Tenax for management access and in my situation it works a treat. Much natural regeneration from tree seed inside the enclosure, very little outside where the deer can get to it. Alas, the huge time and effort you have spent with the cages would perhaps have been better spent on using Tenax to give you a 6' perimeter fence to exclude deer. Tenax is light enough that it can be added to existing post and wire stock fence. This would also let you strim underneath the Tenax if it is a few inches above ground at the bottom. Have you investigated Kentish cobnut platts? They produce a crop and use grazing (sheep are usual/traditional I understand) for vegetation management under the trees. And it is 'underneath' as some platts are hundreds of years old. Try this link? kentishcobnutsassociation.org.uk/downloads/ Hope this is helpful. Good luck. I think you are brave and deserve success.
Hello Anemone. That was an interesting video, thank you. I am going for single stem trees, so the dead hedge might not fit, but.. it has got me thinking that maybe I should layer up the hedgerows along the way lines that the deer typically follow to try and deflect them away from the farm. I did put up a 5 foot fence around the border of two of the fields and it has slowed the deer, but I have seen them jump it. That being said, they ran up and down the fence panicking to try get out when they saw me, but in the end, they cleared it. If doing it again, I think a 6-foot wire fence, combined with a decent hedge would stop them. I've learnt that deer won't jump a hedge if they can't spot their landing, so a thick hedge can offer protection. With regards to Kentish Cobnuts, I went to visit some orchard owners in Kent before establishing Gubb Farm. They were very helpful and it was informative. What I've come to realise is that they have different challenges when compared to Gubb Farm. I heard talk of voles and squirrels, which are not an issue for me, whereas deer is my main issue. With regards to deer numbers, they have no predators and their numbers are growing exponentially. There is going to have to be some sort of intervention such as a significant cull to bring herd sizes down. All the best Dary
@@GubbFarm First big question: If livestock are frowned upon, how come deer are okay? I use dead hedges to fence out deer because I have the material to build them as a by-product of why I cut coppice - fuel wood. I have used Tenax alone in a previous life and very successfully. It needs to be 6 feet high for roe deer. You can use it with a scattering of branches inside or outside to increase its effectiveness. Add it to stock fence with a hedge behind (as in your vids in various places) and I think it will work well. If they are long enough, you might split your used tree stakes on a tablesaw or bandsaw and screw them to fenceposts, raising the base of the tenax above the ground to allow strimming along the base and to increase the actual height beyond 6'. You shouldn't need a top wire in this situation and the mesh should last around 10 years. It is light in weight and seems not to need too much support. Grey squirrels (non-natives from North America of course) in southern England woodlands eat pretty well all the hazelnuts, often taking them before they are ripe. There is a vid on the channel showing this. You are better off without them. I hope this is all useful. I agree with your last sentence, but it's a bit of a 'room elephant'. There seems to be no 'plan' in our area for deer control and deer (especially sika) appear to be increasing their population very quickly and spreading across Dorset extremely fast. We need a co-ordinated programme of control, not just individual landowners acting alone or (worse) taking out the mature territory-holding (trophy) stags and leaving the rest. Are deer a 'natural resource' that humans (as introducers of sika, fallow and muntjac and exterminators of their natural predators) have a moral duty to husband or is the emotional resistance to killing deer going to prevent any action ever? Deer also graze arable crops and I even know of a charity that offers carriage driving as therapy that have had to deer fence their pony paddocks to be able to graze them. Shutting up now.....
Hello@@anemone104 You have hit on a key point regarding livestock being frowned on, but no consideration towards other animals such as deer. Ultimately there are many wild animals that carry the same pathogens as domestic livestock on the farm such as rodents, birds, badgers and deer. I've been thinking a lot about the fencing. I know that putting up the Tenax will deter the deer, but I don't want that on all of the boundaries, at least for now, but that might change. Possibly I will target key way lines that the deer follow to deflect them around the farm, with improved hedging and wire. But all of that being said, I have probably had around 10 to 20 trees damaged, which is less than 1% of the total number of trees planted, so maybe that is an acceptable loss. More thought is required. All the best
Excellent video just shows all the people that are making these regulations haven’t a clue that 12 month rule completely over looks what silver pastures / agroforestry / regenerative farming is.
Have you checked out the youtube channel called Savannah Institute? They have recently released several videos about food safety in agroforestry enterprises. And have a wealth of knowledge on their channel in general.
Cant you put a sheep in there to eat the grass? Have the cages 20cm off the ground and a guard around the base of the tree? This way they can eat the grass below the tree? Maybe the cages should have barb wire on them too?
Hello. Thanks for your comment. I originally had chicken wire cages around the trees, with about a 40 cm diameter, but it didn't work out well. Firstly the branches of the tree got caught up in the wire and secondly the wire created a climbing frame for other vegetation, which in turn reduced sun light / crowded out the trees when it was getting established. Having spent endless hours putting it up, then adjusting it to fix problems, the deer still ripped it off. In the end, out of sheer frustration, I removed the wire cages.
@@GubbFarm Ahh fair enough others use plastic tubes. I wonder what the best way would be to have sheep in your paddock doing the mowing and weeding without destroying your trees.
Great to see you're back. Sounds like you need electric wire like people use for cows and pigs with some solar chargers. (to keep the deer out). You have a complex issue dealing with the regulations. No easy answers there.
Hello Steve, good to hear from you. Electric fencing or tall wire fence might be the required. I am going to get a dog and train it to track deer, so hopefully the dog will also help keep them at bay. I am going to make a bioreactor, like the one you created at some point over the coming weeks. Just some posts and chicken wire. I hope all is well.
@@GubbFarm The electric wire would probably be more effective. 2 or 3 wires at different heights. I will keep an eye out for a new bioreactor video from you. Have a good one Dary.
@@GubbFarm once the tree is established it's canopy will stop nettle growing, bramble can be removed or trained later on. Bramble and Eurasian Jays are the tree makers
Great to hear from you again, Dary. Sorry you're having to deal with the confusion around standards. I'm trying to get my mind around it, but the regulations don't seem to make a lot of sense. Apparently, you can have silvopasturing, but not if you're actually using the trees for anything other than lumber. That sounds kind of like... pasturing? The turkeys in the coppicing forest sound like a real possibility. Hope it works out for you.
Hello Bob and good to hear from you. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised to see guidance that livestock cannot be kept in an orchard for 12 months before harvest. That being said, it is only guidance and if I am sensible around harvesting and don't join any farm assurance schemes, I should be able to work around it. I've been doing some research into how long pathogens last in the soil and one paper suggested that within 3 weeks, introduced pathogens were reduced to background levels. I can understand what regulators are trying to achieve, but I think the subject matter requires more research. All the best.
@@GubbFarm well IMO those regs are nonsense. Are they trying to say that the area's fruit/nut trees grow in is sterile? No wild birds/animals around pooing? Are the wild deer not pooing then? Utter rubbish if you ask me. The real cause of all these pathogens is factory farming.
Hello@@Grown-in-Tyrone. I agree, it is nonsense... dogs, cats, badgers, birds, mice, squirrels, deer etc roam through the orchard on a daily basis. I was just looking at your polytunnel on your channel. Nice. My vegetables outside last year had mixed results and thinking about setting up a polytunnel. I hope all is well.
@@GubbFarm yes, polytunnels are handy and cheap for sure but if I had it to do again I'd probably get another glasshouse. Its only more recently that I realised the amount of pollution and GHGs coming off plastic. Also, glasshouse is cleaner drier air, not so sweaty. Unfortunately, expensive to replicate same amount of space as PT. One good thing though, all the veggies I've grown in it have not been wrapped in single use plastic. I'd recommend a 'legume garden' for beans and peas outside. No need to rotate crops so permanent supports, handy!
Hello Stuart. I am trying to hold off putting up deer fences, more so from an aesthetics perspective. I have now accepted there will be loses and will replant. All the best
The only suggestion I have once you've decided to obey the regulations is to graze the land when the trees are young and producing little. (How they expect you to keep the deer from pooping, I don't know.)
Not sure if this has been suggested before but have you considered mulch mats? I use old carpet cut into squares with a small cross in the middle. It is quite labour intensive initially, but you can forget about weeding around the tree for a good number of years.
Hello Kevin. I have considered mulch mats and they are probably a decent option, but never progressed it. Ended up settling on woodchip as the research suggested it was the best option for maximising yield. That being said, I haven't read much research on mulch matts and I would be interested in learning from your experience. All the best.
Idea. Why not. Buy one of those livestock guardian dogs eg Pyrenean Mountain Dog let it. Free roam in your orchard. that will keep the deer away . As an alternative to expensive deer fencing ? You could keep some chickens then too and it will keep the foxes out. The eggs will pay for your dog food (or you can feed them to the dog. And the chickens will control -eats and fertilise your orchard. Just a thought .. oh and one more thing. Cardboard and weed matting around the base of each tree. Then no grass cutting necessary….. just listened to the end and I see your dilemma with the crazy conflicting rules re silvopasture
Hello Dave. I bought a Golden Retriever who takes great delight in chasing after deer around the farm (and waking me at 3am by barking at them and anything else that moves). As a result, I have not seen any fraying on trees near the house, but at the opposite end of the farm the deer have damaged trees. Dogs do work, but you would need to have them distributed around the farm to fully prevent deer damage. As for poultry, this is something I have repeatedly looked at. I think it could be a viable business, but it is not something I want to commit to at the moment. If I introduced poultry, I am very dependent on buying in animal feed and you are very much at the mercy of the markets as to whether or not you profit. If I was an arable farmer who could produce my own animal feed, I think it would be a great fit, as I can control my cost base. All the best
Hi Jay. That is an option. I did try using plastic spiral guards and you end up with a lot of leaf growth inside them that rots if you don't remove it. The deer combined with UV damage resulted in a lot of broken plastic around the trees. However, a wider sturdier drainage pipe with better airflow might work. All the best.
@@GubbFarm I have been planting the land with trees on a sheep farm which also has deer knocking around, and Inused to try all the guards to keep them away from the trees but the only thing that has worked is to grow the trees in a small nursery section which is protected until they get to approx 6 foot then dig them up, prune and add the pipe which is pretty good value per tree. Deer don't normally come.on my land as its being grazed but any field i keep up the deer will be in it, so your juice field of grass is heaven for them
That chicken wire is to flimsy. I use Road Mesh. The stuff that is lay down before pouring a concrete slab. It has a 6"x6" grid so you can stick you hand in to trim, pull weeds or apply mulch around your trees. The other option would be to raise the hight of the fence so that deer can't jump it. Any way you look at it it's an added expense. However, so is replacing or a set back in growth because of damage.
Hello DRT. I agree that is flimsy. One of the problems with more robust solutions is cost. With 2100 trees, the cost of putting in place more expensive solutions quickly adds up. Perimeter fencing is the best option and with hindsight, I probably should have added another row to the fence. Lessons learnt. As you mentioned, it is finding that balancing act between initial investment and tree loses. All the best.
Established distribution networks might not be the answer for your product?? Surely the sun is the greatest sanitizer of all or you pass the harvest under UV light.. You would think that wild birds that land on the trees would be more potential harm than a broiler or layer that's on the ground... Keep us updated 👍🏻
Hello and good to hear from you. My end goal is to sell the nuts directly, so hopefully I won't have much need to use larger food chain. I would agree with your comment on UV light. The truth of the matter is that even if you don't have livestock in the orchard, you are still going to have birds, dogs, cats, badgers and various others mammals coming and going. The current guidance is very flawed. All the best Dary
Billy from Perma Pastures Farm makes a “Bone Sauce” Deer deterrent product that works really well and lasts for a very long time (think he said 10 years) with one application. Check out his YT channel.
Hello Dick. I'm just watching a video on Billy's Bone Sauce. It sounds very interesting and what a lovely farm setting they have on Perma Pastures Farm. Thank you!
@@GubbFarm Your welcome. Interestingly deer have poor depth perception. There is another Channel called Living Traditions Homestead that has had success with a double fence system around one of their pastures. However two 4 foot perimeter fences (versus one ugly 8 foot fence) will be a huge cost in your case. Cheers
