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Fruit & Orchards

Something ate part of this apple tree

9 years ago

This a seedling I started last year. Last night something ate part of it but there is no tracks in the snow around it and the snow has been on the ground all week. A small peach also had similar damage. I had similar problems last summer. What kind of animal is doing this?

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Comments (12)

TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
9 years ago
Looks like rabbit to me.
Orchardman
Original Author
9 years ago
That's what I thought but there are no tracks around it.
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I don't know where you live but a multi grafted espalier apple tree would fit in nicely there. Check out your local nurseries.Some do carry them allready growing well. But before you do that if you don't know much about apple growing. Rip out that tree and start now reading past posts on growing and caring for apple trees. This is a great place to read plenty of old posts about growing apple trees. Then by next spring you will be prepared to grow again. My espalier I bought at a local nursery has four different apples on it and fits snugly in a small area of my veg garden.
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I have new fruit trees I've installed over the last two years and just noticed that one row of peach trees has been touched, one hasn't. I'm suspecting deer, even though the row they hit was the newest and the smallest and the browsing has been on branches low to the ground but higher than I'd expect for rabbit. I also supect it since when I first noticed the nibbling, before it started in earnest there was fresh snow cover and one doesn't mistake the tracks a deer or for that fact a rabbit makes. The tree with the nibbled branch had the tracks of a younger deer. It didn't like what it found, as they remained unmolested for a month, but yesterday when I walked the property to look for the 'state of the union' I found a lot of deer browse and I have been seeing small herds. Deer will eat the most delicious and appropriate morsels early in the season and when winter starts wearing down toward spring, food starts running short and they decide the gals all get prettier at closing time. Then they start in on forage supposedly distasteful and harmful to them.
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How sad. I had a ground squirrel or two take out a few Foster Holly and Oak trees that had managed to survive for me along a fence line on my property which borders a field where the farmer alternated growing crops one year, and using the field to graze cattle on the odd years. It certainly is distressful to watch trees at times struggle to survive, finally look like they managed to pull through, but only then to find that some critter has found, and devoured, or uprooted the tree's most critical parts. One good thing is that your tree is still small enough, that it should still be putting forth the extra effort to grow. Only question: is there enough root left to help your little sprout to recover? other option: In your area, do you have a nearby growing mature Shagbark Hickory tree that sprouts a lot of seeds? If so it might be better at this time to prepare another nursery bed by digging down a few feet and lining the hole with small enough woven, rust proof wire or fencing, which has been attached all along the seams sufficiently to keep ground pests from tunneling under and into the nursery bed. You could also extend the sides of the wiring up above ground and provice the same kind of protection that you describe doing earlier. Then next spring those mature trees which earlier had dropped seed, and those seed that have sprouted and grown about 4 inches tall; you could dig one or two, with keeping a handfull virgin soil around their roots, and immediately transplant them into your nursery bed. This should keep the underground pests from damaging you new sprouts
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praying mantis eats BUGS... its a predator.. and totally beneficial to your garden ... google should have told you that ... [momma is even known to eat daddy .. whats that all about????] you should start your own post.. in any appropriate forum .. as your questions cover many different plants ... as to the apple... if tiny ... under a foot or two.. it should have remained potted ... in proper planting media for a tree .... is this from seed from an apple you ate???? ... if so .. genetics tells us.. you might not end up with a good eating apple .... [hint, hint .. research that] or extremely protected ... if in mother earth .... i would have used a rose cone without a top for a year or two ... rake the soil around the plant.. in the evening.. and see if you can see any tracks in the morning ... think rabbit.. or droppings ... most bugs can not strip a plant bare overnight.. you would see chew marks on parts of leaves remaining ... so i am thinking something bigger ... squirrels ... tend to dig up young plants.. trying to look for whatever you hid under the soil.. idiots.. lol ... rather than eating the plant .... but you never know.. they are insane ... start your own post.. and add a pic.. if you want more than guessing ...and i am telling you to encourage you to start and join a new conversation... not chiding you for throwing this at the end of some very old post ... live an learn.. and we like to teach... so go for it... good luck ken
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Derby42 zone 6
9 years ago
I agree. I made little round cages out of some old chicken wire and put around my apple trees to keep the rabbits off
BarbJP 15-16/9B CA Bay Area
9 years ago
Voles maybe? I've heard they can tunnel under snow.
TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
9 years ago
Looks like there is enough crust on the snow for a rabbit to not leave tracks.
jbclem
9 years ago
Look closely at the bite marks. Some animals, like deer, only have teeth in one part of their jaw(top, I believe)so only one side of the wood will be cut clean. I used to know about other animal bite marks , like rabbits, but I forget now. You can look up bite marks on the web and try to figure it out that way.

I hope you've put a wire cage around it by now, a hungry animal might come back for more.
TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
9 years ago
Deer only have lower incisors so they typically tear vegetation as they feed. Clean cuts are indicative of animals having both lower and upper incisors.
Konrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
9 years ago
Agree for Rabbit culprit
Orchardman
Original Author
9 years ago
Its about two foot off the ground. I am leaning toward a rabbit too.
summersrhythm_z6a
9 years ago
Rabbit indeed.
jbclem
9 years ago
While we're on the subject, could I ask for some opinions on these bite marks. They were on a 4-5 foot tall, young mandarin tree, inside a cylindrical deer fence. The branches were 1-2 ft long and were all eaten back to stubs. There was no left over leaf or branch debris on the ground. The cylindrical cage was 4 feet high and 4-5 feet in diameter. And there was no sign that the cage had been pushed in by a deer reaching his muzzle through an opening.

Do the bite marks look familiar to anyone?
TurkeyCreekTrees Zone 5B
9 years ago
That looks more typical of deer damage. Ragged edges on the cut surfaces. A deer can easily reach 18" through a large enough opening in a fence. Not only that but they will stand on their hind legs to reach things as high as 5-6' above the ground.

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