December 2022 - 12

Protecting orchards from deer damage
By Doug Ohlemeier
Assistant Editor
Because they consume lots of fruits
and pecans, deer can become big problems
in orchards, especially during mating
season when male deer can destroy trees.
Monte Nesbitt, Extension program
specialist of pecans, fruit and citrus at
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in
College Station, discussed his experiences
keeping deer away from his peach orchard
south of Gonzalez, Texas, at the Sept. 26-27
Texas Fruit Conference in New Braunfels.
He and his wife purchased land across the
road from his parents east of San Antonio.
They planted 100 trees on one parcel and
70 trees on another on their 6 acres.
" Deer are a real challenge, " Nesbitt said.
" Peaches are challenging enough without
the added burden of deer browsing and
scraping. It's been a real, real serious
negative impact on my ability to be
successful growing fruit trees the way I
want to. You train your plants, you fertilize,
you spray, but lose a tree to a male deer
that needs to find something else to do
with his time. It's not a pleasant situation. "
Deer tree battles
From September through January, male
deer fight each other with their antlers
and love to practice their fighting skills on
peach trees.
" They like to scrape, rattle and just
feel really big, " Nesbitt said. " Peaches are
labor intensive enough, with tree training,
thinning, weed control and fertilizer. What
you don't need is the added burden of
having deer browsing, eating the foliage,
robbing the carbohydrate accumulation
process or strangling the young trees to
death or injuring your mature trees. "
States with the highest whitetail deer
populations include Texas, at 5.4 million,
Michigan, 2 million, Alabama, 1.8 million,
Missouri, 1.4 million, Georgia, 1.3 million,
New York, 1.2 million, and North Carolina,
1 million. During the fall of 2016, 22%of
his first 100 trees saw moderate or severe
deer scraping damage.
Getting past the deer by erecting a
fencing system opened a new realm of
possibilities for Nesbitt and his time,
he said.
Nesbitt went through the various
types of solutions. He characterized
electric fences as possessing positives
and negatives, but stated they can help, at
least a little.
Electric systems thwart some damage,
not only from deer, but also raccoons and
opossums. Deer quickly learn if the fence
is hot or not. Electric fences are relatively
low cost and can expand to or reduce areas
quickly as needed. They must be in clean,
weed-free areas. Erection in open and
unobstructed areas work best, Nesbitt said.
Fencing can help protect orchards from deer, which can cause much tree damage.
High game fences work well but are costly. Photos: Monte Nesbitt
A big headache, however, is constant
" grounding out. " Something as small as
a blade of grass can negate the system,
Nesbitt said. " It just takes one thing to go
wrong, and your defense system is out of
order, " he said. " I've found you must live
onsite to monitor the soap opera of you
grounding out every day. "
Individual tree enclosures, such as
posts and fencing using chicken wire and
web mesh, can be highly effective against
an array of large and small animals, and
work well in small and recreational scale
orchards. Such systems, however, are more
expensive than fencing the perimeter in
commercial orchards. A grower could
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December 2022

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