Time to install deer protection

    Its almost mid-August, which means that buck deer will soon be searching for just the right tree to rub the velvet off their antlers and mark their territory. Bucks seem to prefer to rub trees in the 1-2 inch diameter range making young pecan trees an ideal target for deer damage.
    Preventing buck rub is important for preserving all the work you invested to train the tree into a nice, straight, central leader. Over the last several years, we've been using a hard-plastic-mesh tree guard that is 3 feet tall to protect the trunks of young trees (photo at right). 
    We installed the tree guards this week (August 8th) and will leave the guards on until sometime next spring. I remove these tree guards every year during early spring to make pruning off trunk sprouts much easier.