There is a sort of rubbery annual called Lathyrus Euphorbia, the "Mole Plant", that may also repel gophers.
I have a few growing in my vineyard border, and so far as I can tell, the moles won't eat them.

I never use a cage, I use a trap and pluck them out of the ground at my parents house all the time.

I think you mean pocket gophers and they only go down ~ 18 inches.

It is possible to trap them on your property?

Where do you live, are you able to keep your figs in pots, YOu can grow them very successfully in pots. When you have problems with gophers, like loslunasfarms said, trapping them is the best bet. Gophers are a big problem in some parts of the country. Ciao and good luck.

BTW, when I say traps I mean the ones that you dont have to re-release them in the wild.

My property borders an open field, and gophers are a big problem for me  supply unlimited. This is why trapping them( tried it before) is futile. As for Euphorbia lathyrus ("Gopher Purge") here it self-seeds and I don't pull it out, but it's totally useless - I watched a few times gophers pulling a vegetable plant down the hole with gopher purge growing less than 2 feet away.
Yes, I can grow figs in pots, but they are very pretty trees when they are big.

So, nobody grows figs in cages?

It does apparently repel gophers, but you would need a lot of it and can imaging it would be unsightly.

http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/euplathyrus.htm

* Posted by boizeau 7a (My Page) on
Thu, Dec 18, 08 at 22:13

It does apparently repel gophers, but you would need a lot of it and can imaging it would be unsightly.

####

Well, with this I have to agree. If I planted nothing else, but gopher purge in my yard then gophers might be repelled. Never saw a gopher yet eating gopher purge.

Then, as my father experimented with doing at work (he is an agricultural specialist for the gov) and had good success with, in terms of detering pocket gopher was putting an approx 2ft trench around 6 inched wide around the area to be protected with larger gravel, you might be able to use rock.

I myself would not use a cage, but instead use some sort of soft rock mixed in with the soil to deter them. The problem with a cage is that it breaks down and makes it somewhat a pain to move the tree if you need to. The trench might be a more long term solution until the tree becomes established.

Maybe someone else can come up with a better idear or add something to it to make it better.

I might add that your extension service might also be of help in controlling these pests. My parent's land sometimes was a pain to irrigate because the water in the furoughs would just drain into their tunnels and water gurgle out 300 ft away where you dont want water..

For me, trapping was very therapeutic, but time and labor intensive. (Can you tell im very bitter still?)

"For me, trapping was very therapeutic, but time and labor intensive." This just means you get to enjoy it more 8^). This might be a good release for rush hour traffic......

Loslunasfarms, I have a live trap that I use for raccoons. I got ten one year and I just dropped the trap and contents in my deep pond for five minutes. Problem solved.

John.

I have gophers here in the pastures. I have a plow that plants a few grains of poisoned milo every 4 feet or so in the tunnel the plow makes. This is a very effective way to handle rangeland, but worthless in a garden or flower bed. I do use it in my yard; in the spring the disturbed lawn will be healed in three weeks.)

Northen Tools and Harbor Freight used to (and may yet) sell a probe that does the same thing; you insert the probe in a gopher tunnel and twist a knob to release a dose of poisoned grain in the tunnel. I have one of these and use it in the yard and flower beds. It works, but where there is an unlimited supply of gophers you have to work at it. I will have to run my plow again this spring.

There are also smoke pellets that are inserted in a tunnel and lit; these kill any gopher trapped in that tunnel, but you never know which direction the tunnel leads or where the gopher is. Then there is the gopher blaster, a device that shoots an explosive charge of propane into the tunnel and sets it off.

I think the poisoned grain is by far the most effective in terms of labor and cost.

I have and have used the traps, but as Jose says, they will work you to death digging holes and setting traps.

By the way, do NOT try to pick up a live gopher.

Some years ago I saw what Milque Toast saw; a gopher pulling one of my garden plants down into his tunnel. I pulled an Elmer Fudd; I wish someone had taken that video. I could have sold it to every theatre in the country.
Ox

Washington State has some very tough laws against using traps. This is a critter-friendly state. Some environmental zealots have banned traps and so I guess the Gophers are fairly safe here.
Have not seen the problem in Western Wa, but do have moles.
My cat manages to get them once in a while. She is a great hunter.

I would not hesitate to trap them on my property, regardless what them' greenies say.

Also, we have morons trying to incorporate the Mexican wolf and now you have children bus stops with cages so that the kids can wait for the bus without being hunted.

I still think that setting traps is very therapeutic and they are not as fluffy, cuddly, and cute as some of these greenies would have you believe. An as OX said, dont pick a live one up, they are bitters.Ask a few of my cats. If you use the trap, be sure to stake it.

Oh well, plaNTED TREES IN WIRE BASKETS(NO BOTTOMS).

About gophers, while I agree that killing gophers can be therapeutic(as someone said) and I've tried all the methods mentioned here plus some(once hurled a rock when poor creature stuck its head out of the hole, killing it), pls remember that gophers did not choose to be such pests on their own free will, but were created/evolved this way. So, have a pity!

The wirebasket idear sounds pretty good. If you can, take pics thru out the process, and post results. We all love to learn from endeavors of others!

Milque:
I intentionally did not mention shooting with rifles, shotguns, B & A, bean flips, hurling rocks, etc. A friend in Calif told me that just aftere WWII he and other vets would sit in their back yards and shoot gophers with .22 short shorts (What IS the proper name for those little .22 cartridges, lighter loads than even .22 shorts?) I have a box of them in the barn but I'm drawing a blank.

I've only seen a gopher above ground once, and I shot the beast with a .410 just outside my bedroom door. Overkill.

I place no faith in the suggestion that one might surround a planting with a rock-filled ditch. The gopher will go overland at night to cross a barrier. At any rate they love fig roots and we, they and I, are at war.
Ox