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.