this is why I use them. grass is 2 foot high

one year is short one and second year its out of the top be 18 inches

In addition to browse control, they also stop the deer from rubbing on them. Another benefit is the greenhouse effect to amplify growth. I know they add a significant cost to planting but I use them on seedlings that require a high amount of labor to get in the ground…like hardwood rootstock.

I ordered some Plantra 5' tubes the other day

I should have said to get the ones with the hole halfway up, hopefully they are most now days do,

I used them when I planted a lot of sawtooth oaks. I bought a Stihl gas drill with a side handle and a 5-inch auger. It would be a wrist breaker without the side handle. It piles the nice fluffy dirt around the hole, just put the seedling in and push the dirt in over the roots. I also put down a 2x2 piece of black plastic before the tube and stake to keep the grass and weeds from growing around it.

Why do want a hole in them? I would think mice could crawl through, depending on snow depth

the holes are only in the top half of the tubes, an a allows the air to flow thru some, the holes are only 1/2 inch , just found some that I planted 3 years ago, during hunting season, I flag them so went I come back I can find them, well they are only about a foot high, the ones that I planted at the same time with the tubes are 5-6 feet with tubes,

Do you think maybe the tubes help to get the seedling to grow taller to reach light?

I've thought about taking a hot nail & putting some small holes near the top of tree tubes

I used wood stakes the other day for the first time ever with tree tubes. They work decent but then it occurred to me that mice could crawl up them.

I use tree tubes down here all the time, and it definitely helps. Have to carefully watch them though as fire ants have learned to build inside the tubes and mound dirt up the tube which will kill the tree. I hate fire ants.
Not that ya'll have to worry about that up north, just putting it here for any southern guys.

Up here, the forester had told me to lift the tube about 1 week a year to discourage ants.

Ants are like beaver…relentless. Unless you kill them all, they will just build back bigger if you disturb them.

I’ll be planting dogwood whips this spring and thinking about using sections of corrugated sump pump hose as tubes. Cheap and would prevent being browsed all the way to the ground.

In the south, they are a fireant magnet. I have had them girdle the trees. Also had some trees extending out of the tube get damaged by blowing around and rubbing on the top of the tube and breaking off. I dont use them anymore

That would be bad

I plant bare root seedling oaks either with a tree planter behind a tractor, or if not planting many with a dibble bar or spade. Then I drive a 30" x 1/2" rebar beside it and leave a foot sticking out. Slip a 5' PVC over the rebar and attach to the 5' tree tube. Leave it on until the trunk splits the tube.
The pvc is flexible enough to help build girth on the new tree's trunk. It also helps keeping the tree from breaking off above the tube during high winds.
5' tube is necessary here to keep the deer from browsing them off.
I find that if I bury the bottom of the tube slightly with dirt, mice and voles are less of a problem.
I have trees all planted the same day. Those with tubes are 10' tall or so. Those without, are no more than 2' tall due to deer browse.

Rabbits are a key reason for tree tubes.

tubes work great 3x the growth,

Ok, cool.
I suppose it's partly a result of the greenhouse effect. If the summer is dry & excessively hot, I sometimes wonder if such a greenhouse effect could be a hindrance. I'd be curious to hear others thoughts on that.

My long experience with tree tubes is some tree species do great in them and some don’t.
Depends on soil, moisture etc too. I’ve found better success by drilling half inch holes here and there in each tube

I thought about doing that to allow it to vent a little--just be careful the holes are above a mouses level.

Very smart! Keeps deer and other animals rubbing them or peeling the bark off of them. Nice work! I have done that before!

I wonder if mice can climb those white plastic corrugated tree tubes

I buy tubes with holes in them I have never had mice in tubes yet

https://terratech.net/products/seedling-protection/progro-tubes-36-height-lite/

These tubes say they increase temperature within the tube. Is that really a good thing, considering the hot dry weather many of us have faced the past ~couple years?

I can see how the fact that your tubes breathe from the side could be a benefit

A problem I have had with tree tubes on occasion is when the tree starts growing above the tube, deer seem to notice it easier, as if the leaves are being served to them on a platter.

Not sure but they're used down here where the avg temp from about April to October is 90 degrees with 90% humidity.

Ok. We have decent humidity too, but not that high

I have no problem with deer browsing trees in tubes as long as the tubes are 5' tall.

Do you put your new seedings in 5' tubes?

yes

Ok. Do you ever have issues with critters pushing the tube over?

What kind of post do you use for a 5' tube?

4 ft Electric fence post

30" rebar driven half way into the ground, then slide a 5' x 1/2" grey pvc tube over that and zip tie the PVC to the tree tube. This lets the tree tube flex in the wind and build stem strength.

Here in SE PA I used 1000’s of tubes for silvicuture, riparian buffers etc…. Without them, deer destroy the trees. They do kill bluebirds without the netting on top. I have freed numerous bluebirds and removed enough dead ones. Meadow vole and mice do get under them girdle the bark.
During floods the tubes float down into the Chesapeake Bay, and the MD guys get (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman). They work well, but still need maintenance every 60 days during the growing season. Gotta watch the vines like bittersweet climbing up them.

I use rebar cut a 20 piece into 4 pieces

We have stopped using the full length or 5' tree tubes. We found that the seedlings grew fast, but they were spindly or leggy. We now cut down our tubes in to about 18" lengths to put over seedlings to keep the rabbits and other critters from girdleing them. We then put 2" x 4" welded wire fencing about 3' tall and fastened to 2 steel fence posts around the seedings. The fencing is raised up about a foot off the ground, so we can gain a little more height for deer browising protection.

We are not planting as many trees as Trapper Dahlgren, or others have, so our method is more practical for us.

When you end up removing the steel fence post doesn't it damage the roots? Maybe you remove the cross piece at the bottom

Most of the steel posts we are using don't have the cross pieces on them. We do have some with the cross piece on them, but so far we haven't noticed any problems with the roots growing into or around them. We also try to keep our fencing to about a 3 to 3-1/2' diameter which keeps it away from the seedling pretty good.

I planted my truckload of oaks yesterday and today. Camera caught some action shots.

There are a few deer around. Should they all be tubed?

only if you want them to grow into a tree.

I have switched to putting welded wire fencing around my trees.
I have pulled the tubes that had trees growing in them for about 4-5 years and haven't amounted to anything yet and replaced the tubes with the wire.
I have planted trees in openings in the woods after a tornado went thru and opened up spots.
Seems to me that when not in full light the tube might be restricting sunlight too much. That plus the leaves that hang on thru the winter that then don't fall down and end up being a block in the tube.
These are White Oak seedlings.

I ended up giving a bunch of used tubes to a guy that was has planted hundred of trees in the Ripon/Green lake area. He also commented on the very low suitability of hardwood trees due to deer..
Claims he planted white cedar and have some that are 25 years old and only 3-4 ft high. The deer heavily prune them every year.

I like the idea of some sort of mesh or screen material D.

I don’t need all of them to grow into a tree. Frankly if half survive, I planted way too many. How many per acre do I need to survive to meet the minimum qualifications? I really wish I could do an oak savanna in my MFL plan, but I think they want them thicker than that!

Perhaps worst case maybe just try some bud capping if you have success problems

I think you'll have a good enough survival rate to satisfy you. It sounds like you planted extra, knowing some won't make it, which is smart.

So my experience in tree planting some 200 white oak, 25 red oak, 25 scarlet oak, and 25 persimmon on the side of a hill where we couldn't use a tractor for planting was we rented a post hole drill/auger with a 2" bit, bought several bags of top soil, and several 20' sections of fiberglass rebar and I cut those down to 4' sections(wear gloves handling the fiberglass rebar, and expect to go through several blades on your sawzall). Then we drilled holes every 25 feet, put the seedlings in, topped them off with the bagged top soil, and used the natural rocky/clay soil on top. I made a post driver using a 10" piece of black pipe with a cap on one end, and we put a 3' white tree protector over the seedling and then zip tied that to the post we drove in.
The one thing nobody mentioned was looking down the tubes checking on your seedlings, be careful as wasp's luv to build nests inside the tubes, and if the you look in quickly, look out for the guards as they will get ya!!!

I've seen that twice already this month.

Deer seem to be leaving the trees along in most of the cuts. The ones planted into the rye are doing really well with it being so wet even though there is lots of traffic there. Had it dried up, it would have probably been a different story. I like how it has kept the thistles at bay.

Now to the one cut has a little browse pressure. Might be my fault for seeding it down with clover, alfalfa and chicory last fall. It is also a major travelway for the deer so I decided to tube a few there. That tubes was the last tube I put in that night and the buck was in the plot by the time I drove away checking out what I was doing.


Speaking of tree tubes, I also found out that tree pro where I got my tree tubes from in the past had a recall on some of their tubes. The defect made the tubes really brittle. I couldn’t figure out why I had a bunch of tubes that fell apart. Now I know. They did send me replacement tubes which was nice.

I’ve put in over 200 trees in the last year. A combo of hard and soft mast and used the Plantra tubes and stakes for all. They were 2 year old bare root stock put in the ground in Feb of last year and 90% had leaves poking out the top of a 5’ tube by the Fall of last year. The attached pic is from a week ago with everything leafed out.

I’ve lost 4 trees out of the 200. 98% survival rate with the tubes so far.

that's great gunnleg

That tube in your picture looks multi colored

Not following you my friend. Are you asking about it being darker from the top down? If so, that's just leafy growth inside of the tube.

Either way, tubes or wire fencing, I'm just glad people are planting trees for the future. Around here, if farm ground is sold and there are trees on it or near it, most likely the trees will be taken down. I've had farmers here tell me, "A tree is nothing but a machinery grabber."

When my daughter died, I planted a red maple in her memory in our yard. That fall a buck scraped about 3 feet off bark off the tree. That was a couple years ago. I've been trying to save the tree since by painting it with a black tar-like tree healing substance for trees. The past two winters I've protected it with a tube as shown in the photos. I've also put tree fertilizer spikes and plenty of water the past two years. This year it's getting plenty of water with all the rain. Hopefully, it will survive.

Ahh, that makes sense. Thanks

Last month I put a white corrugated tree tube on a young oak to keep the goats from eating it. When I moved the goat pen last week I removed the tube & was surprised to see the leaves turned somewhat blackish. Strange..

did it have holes, in tube

Just wrapped up my bi-annual spraying around the base of the trees with glyphosate to keep the weeds kicked back. 4 gallon backpack sprayer x 3 to get everything completed. FUN

I don’t have any long term history with this other than planting a handful of things in the past with no tubes and having almost 100% failure.

Several observations - I’m running +95% survival rate on everything that I’ve put in except for persimmon, which seems to be around 60%. If they (persimmon) get through year 1, they absolutely take off though.

Spraying the leaves and outside / inside the tube with pesticide as soon as the leaves start in the Spring keeps the June bugs from eating the leaves back. This seemed to be an issue for first year plants only though.

The various crab pear and apple varieties were 2 yr old stock when I planted them and I started getting fruit after 1 year growth with trees being 3-6’ out of the top of the tube. Not all, but around 50%.

The chestnuts that were planted were 1 yr trees and I’ve got around 30% forming nut (pods?) in year 3. Mostly just 6-8 pods, but more than I would have thought that quickly.

I believe I’m North of 175 trees planted over the last 2 years. Multiple varieties of hard and soft mast. The tubes and the stakes are expensive. Basically spending 1.5 times the costs of the trees themselves, if not slightly more, but I won’t put another tree in the ground without them. This all assumes that I continue to keep this type of survival rate moving forward.

No. I bought it at ACE.

AJE, everything thing I looked at claimed the holes were needed to minimize moisture / condensate build-up and to allow for proper airflow to keep a multitude of deseases down. You might want to get some holes drilled. All of mine have slits in the top, middle and bottom, both sides.

Interesting. You're probably right.

It occurred to me that I think what I was using in this case is more for protecting the bark (trunk) of a little bit larger tree

Those of you using Plantra tubes, how many years do you expect out of them?
How many years does it take for the trees to grow out of the tubes on average? Have 1,000 trees I'm looking to put tubes on and am working the logistics of when to do my next 1,000 trees and if I'll need to buy more tubes.

I have trees that have the tubes on that are 5 years old, I will be removing the tubes this year and put fencing, around them , takes 3 full growing season up here to get trees out of the top of a 6 foot tube, I started with 4 foot tubes ,and the deer just eats the tops off , so when with 5 foot tubes, still had problems, so went to 6 footer's, I try just trees by them self, no tubes and after 3 years, they were only, 16-18 inches high, I like the tubes that have zip ties, much easier to take off.

I got my tubes today. 125 at 5'. New. The guy didn't use all ~1,000 he bought. $2 each. I'm not sure what brand they are but they're the ones sold by Yellow River Nursery

I make my own wood posts out of old deck boards.

They came with the zip ties.

the deer will leave the trees alone till Dec-April, thats when they hit them, when they are feeding mostly on woody browse.

great deal for you,

Yes, tree tubes are so expensive nowadays.

yes , they are but well worth it in my opinion, with the cost of tree and time to plant them, plus they act as a green house here and gives a few months more growing time,

Maybe I missed it but do you guys add some bark/mulch/sawdust around some of your prized young trees/shubs?

I got 60 planted this week.

Nice. Sounds impressive.

In Virginia, so I’m not sure how my growing season compares to those outside of the state. All of my 2 year old bare root trees whether fruit or mast tree were out of the top of the 5’ tube after one full year of growth.

All 1 year stock took 2 years with maybe 5% just poking out of the top in the first year.

I’ve got to assume that I have the best conditions possible as I planted in fields that have previously been farmed for +30 years and I’d have to imagine that the soil was better than in a cutover or elsewhere.

All trees were mulched heavy with a 3’ ring of mulch and I simply spray around the tube with glyphosate once in the Spring and again late summer.

I’m still learning myself as I’ve never had enough property until a few years ago to go at it at this scale, but I’m convinced that I won’t plant another tree outside of a pine without the tube. The Plantra tubes are perforated, which I’ve read to just leave on until the tree naturally grows big enough to burst it on its own, but I don’t think I’m going to go that route.

I hope this answers some of the questions I’ve seen and again, just my experience with the tubes so far.

The lack of competition with other plants makes a huge difference in growth rates and the mulching, probably because of the moisture held in, helps a lot too.

I just got in 50 Everest grape vines and hope to get about half of them put in that way. The others I'll pot up and sell to pay for the ones I am keeping.

Keith

I've never tried that. I'll consider it, thanks.

I'm replacing my tubes with wire fencing.
I have mice either chewing the existing vent holes open so they get in or just climbing up the stake then down inside the tube on the tree.
Every now and then the will girdle the tree so it resprouts and your starting over again.
I don't think they are actively chewing the bark for food just for something to do during those long winter nights.
Few of the trees with tubes were girdled.

Only issue with the wire fencing is during burns that have lots of fuel if enough debris isn't cleared away before burning or risk top killing the tree.
Woodlands with pretty much leaf litter its not an issue.
But about 2 years after the native grasses and forbs get thick due to thinning of the trees it can be an issue.
Then it resprouts and starts again.

Seems I can't win.
I'm looking to make some easy guard to place over the tree to reduce the heat when burning. Maybe a garbage can with the bottom cut out.
2-3 guards would be enough.

All my trees are either Burr Oak or White Oak.