Herbivory Protection

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Herbivory can cause mortality of revegetation plantings. All strategies to reduce herbivory consume resources.

Beavers

• On our beaver sites we are relying on beaver fencing (very expensive) or planting at high densities. I have noticed in our reed canarygrass plantings where we plant stakes at 3-foot spacings (5000 plants per acre), beaver damage has been limited to small areas that I can live with. Whereas when we plant 500 stakes per acre the beavers destroy several acres of plantings. Has anyone noticed similar trends? Does anyone have any tricks that have been effective? We tried planting our trees with a paint/sand mixture to no avail. [Brenda Clifton]

Voles

• We are currently using biodegradable, mesh plant protectors. At first we tried 2% biodegradable additive and the protectors broke down before the first summer. We lost around 4 acres of plants to voles that year. Now we are using 0.25% additive and the protectors last around 3 years. What are other people using? Has anyone decided it is more cost efficient not to use protectors at all? [Brenda Clifton]

Deer/Elk

• We are using a combination of spruce/cedar companion plantings and Plantskydd repellant. A study we did at Savage Slough showed both significantly reduced browse (available at http://skagitcoop.org/wp-content/uploads/Clifton-and-Smith-2018-Comparison-of-Elk-Deterrents.pdf) and that has proved true across our sites. We apply Plantskydd to our deciduous plants twice during the winter when the elk are in the lowlands and grass is not growing as much. The second application is timed right before bud break. We are also burying our protectors 1.5-feet into our holes when we plant to prevent removal by elk. Has anyone else been successful at deterring ungulate browse? What are your techniques? [Brenda Clifton]