Deer Trouble: How My Nordmann Fir Trees Are Recovering

[@CameronHolmes-b6u]

Do you think that the deer were starving and they hit these trees? I am putting in ~500 seedlings this coming spring and I am concerned that they will all be eaten up. I am putting in another 500 Balsam Fir also and I'm wondering if I should just change my order to all Balsam to avoid this. The only reason I ordered Nordmann was to try to ease the future pest problems that Balsams can have.

[@Hillsidechristmastreefarm]

I don't think the deer were starving. For the most part the winter these were damaged in was very mild. There wasn't a lot of snow cover or fridged temps. I'm going to continue planting them where hopefully I can manage deer better (not planting them in the woods) and also will be using some repellants. There's risk with everything. Balsams are a great tree and we plant a lot of them. I don't want to tell you want to plant, but maybe reduce your Nordmanns until you come up with a good management plan for deer. Deer haven't touched my canaans or Concolors so hedge your bets. Here is a recent MSU webinar on deer management mediaspace.msu.edu/media/Deer+management+and+new+repellent+options+in+Christmas+tree+production/1_1vlzkffu let me know what you decide!!

[@johanwedelnielsen]

Only fencing Will work for consistant protektion. Those trees are not going to be good. Start all over with new plants and fence them

[@Hillsidechristmastreefarm]

Thanks Johan, fencing isn't in my budget for quite some time.