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