Vole or rodent damage on grafted tree peonies

stevelau1911

10 years ago

One huge problem that I encountered today when I removed my tarps is that a lot of the specifically grafted rockii peonies still relying on their nurse roots got their cambium layers eaten up very badly while they were being over-wintered. The tree peonies that were already on their own roots seem to be ignored, and some of them were even killed.

Here's a worst case scenario where the cambium on both the tree peony part and nurse root got destroyed. Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Here is a link that might be useful: More pictures of rodent damage, 2nd half of pictures

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Comments (9)

KarenPA_6b
10 years ago
Sorry to hear about the damage on your grafted tree peonies. Are these one year grafts? Do you have a problem with the newly grafted peonies? I did not know that rodents like peonies bark so much.. I do not have any rodent problem probably because the ground has been frozen since December so they could not do much digging.
stevelau1911
Original Author
10 years ago
They are 1-2 year old grafts. The one right in this picture may just be grafted in fall of 2012, but it appears the younger the graft, the more likely they will get attacked, and this happened after it warmed up based on the freshness of the bite marks.

I just know now that putting a tarp over them is not a very good idea.
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Not necessarily. In my nursery I actually have good success rotating about 100 spring traps beneath plastic boxes. Last year I was complacent because the year before there weren't many and we hadn't had a snow winter in a while. I trapped half way through my property when heavy snow came and my problems were where I didn't trap. I use poison on a couple of other sites but you can also protect from meadow voles with plastic spirals or alluminum foil. It's a good idea to remove those two once trees come out of dormancy although I usually get away with leaving the spirals on.
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In twenty+ years of growing all the major fruit species I never had anything but minor rodent damage on anything but apricots (just once, 1 tree, 1 site) occasionally pears and frequently apples until last year when I lost a nectarine and pluot. Last year I saw major damage on a couple of quite old apple trees- one about 20 years the other only about 5 while in the past it was always young trees. The damage I have seen has been from both pine and meadow voles as well as rabbits (last year was all meadow voles). My conclusion is that you never know. I still will only mechanically protect apples and count on trapping out the voles to protect the rest. This continues to work for me and the trees I lost last year were in an area where I didn't do trapping.
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I know I'm late to the party, but in case anyone finds this article, I'm here to tell you that I've successfully bridge grafted vole-girdled apple trees - trees that were girdled in November 2013, no less. We had heavy snow early here in the lake-effect snowbelt of west Michigan, which allowed voles to invade my nursery via tunnels in the snow. We had 30" of snowcover, rendering the 24" plastic guards useless. I had about 20 3-to-5-year-old trees that were completely girdled (and many survivors with a barber-pole spiral up the trunk, where they gnawed away in the expansion space of the plastic guard). About half of the victims were on Bud9, most of the rest on EMLA1111. All the damage was done to the scion, so, in the case of the Bud9 trees, I simply cut below the damage, and cleft-grafted scions from the top of the tree in mid-April. All took, and did well. For the EMLA111; I had spare 111 rootstocks I was stooling, and took some of the larger ones (1/4" caliper), and bridge grafted 5 trees. The rest, I cut back and re-grafted. Again, in mid-April (while the trees were still dormant). Of the trees I bridge grafted, two did not take (one was a Sargent crabapple; that might have been a compatibility issue, the other a Smokehouse), and 3 did. I bark grafted two new rootstocks per tree, buried the roots, and wrapped the graft in parafilm (which weathered off by August). I rubbed off any new growth from the rootstocks, and that was it. It was a last-ditch effort, and frankly I'm surprised by the 60% success rate. That's just a long-winded way of saying that it can be done. Give it a shot, it might work. Otherwise, harvest scions and try again.
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are these those plants that should not be named.. lol ... yeah .. is see the wings .... it looks much more efficient in bark removal... as compared to my rabbit damage ... which seemed to be more of a tearing.. and leaving lots of stuff there, while totally girdling the plant .... rather than the clean white wood ... i dont know how a rabbit got thru that small netting... and as i told you.. i was not aware.. of rabbits burrowing under snow... to do damage.. as you said you had something like 300 feet of snow this year ... ALL MY RABBITS DAMAGE IS NOW 3 FEET ABOVE GROUND .... and that was the level of the snow ... also ... i would bet my shiny nickle that these plants.. if they were not grafted [and who would] .. will return .... but it might take them a few months to bud out and get a move on ... which would only leaves us.. with what they are ... lol ... if they do return.. you might want to think about all your fencing and what not ... i think its really overkill on protection.. on some level.. and if these survive.. maybe you will come to think about how much protection they really need ... continued luck with your collection ... ken ps: tell hubby.. this is what gardening is all about ... no one beats mother nature.. if she so wishes to mess with us .... there is no way to win.. all the time... and he needs to go a bit zen.. on when she does win .... i mean really ... if it wasnt the snow.. and it wasnt the severe temps.. then its the rodents.. and the vermin.. and then the bugs.. and then the hail ... etc ... at some point ... you have to learn to just shrug.. and laugh ... and keep in mind.. anything destroyed.. is a space.. for something new ...
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No-Clue
10 years ago
Oh no! That's terrible! I would be so upset! Do you think they will make it anyway? I'm so sorry to see that.
stevelau1911
Original Author
10 years ago
The cambium layer is pretty much the life force of any kind of peony so when that's completely destroyed like the one in the picture, there's really no chance, but most of them still have cambium connection from the nurse roots to some tree peony buds.

It's not a big issue because I can simply graft more of them.
KarenPA_6b
10 years ago
I went out to check my peonies today, and found some animal dig a hole at one of my peony tree stem. In the process, it knocked off a two inch sprout that came from under the soil. Do you think this bud eye will grow back?
stevelau1911
Original Author
10 years ago
Whenever there's a lack of apical dominance ie big bugs that hog up all the energy, there will be buds growing somewhere. It could happen in the form of more energy towards other buds, or it's possible that another bud will form in its place.

This picture is an example of regeneration.

It generally forms there because auxins were already going towards that site. I'm starting to see some of my tree peonies with no-bud scions generate buds right in the middle of the wood. Buds can form from any part of the cambium.
KarenPA_6b
10 years ago
Thanks, Steve. That is reassuring to know. I am so happy to find that the tree peonies are sending up shoots below the soil which means that it is making its own roots, right?
stevelau1911
Original Author
10 years ago
Those ground buds form out of callus tissue formed on the tree peony part, and roots can also form from it so it means my in ground tree peonies should be well rooted especially when many of them sent ground shoots last spring too.

If you just cut them back to the ground in taking grafts, they will behave just like itoh or herbaceous peonies with the super vigorous growth from the starch reserves.
stevelau1911
Original Author
10 years ago
Today I saw some more damage on the newly grafted tree peonies where the mice are literally attacking the buds so I threw down some moth balls which will hopefully get them to move somewhere else.

I just hope they can hurry up to produce leaves so that they are less vulnerable to attacks.

Vole or rodent damage on grafted tree peonies

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Vole or rodent damage on grafted tree peonies

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KarenPA_6b

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