Shenot Case Study: Eliminating deer damage on newly planted peach and apple trees, pumpkins and other vegetable transplants.
Name: Rob Shenot, Shenot Farms
Location: Wexford, Pennsylvania
Situation: 160 year old suburban orchard 15 miles from downtown Pittsburgh. 100 Newly planted peach trees and 500 apple trees under 3 years old.
“Overall, I am very pleased with the protection the deer repellent gave us on newly planted peach trees. You can clearly see in the first picture taken at the time of the first application that deer can cause significant browse damage to new growth on peach trees. The deer were present throughout the trial and I found that Plantskydd provided a solid 2 weeks of protection during the fast growth phase after which time light damage began to resume. I sprayed the 2nd and 3rd applications about 2 weeks apart. I waited nearly a month (Aug. 21) to spray the fourth time because I did not witness browsing activity until then. On September 17, I saw one tree completely destroyed from buck rub and sprayed the whole lot again hoping to prevent more buck rub damage. Sometime in October, I only saw one more tree with rubbing damage and thought it well worth it to spray again, focusing on spraying the bark.”
“Those young trees certainly wouldn’t have made it through the first season without significant damage from deer browse and rubbing had we not sprayed them with the repellent.”
Pumpkins and other vegetable transplants: “It is worth noting that we also sprayed our pumpkin vines twice using a diluted rate because we have experienced extensive damage in the past. We saw very little damage to the vines and deer do tend to leave the pumpkins alone when they turn yellow but this year was a poor year for fruit set anyway so I haven’t drawn any conclusions there. I also used the product at on some of our vegetable transplants, e.g. cucumbers, squash, etc. This provided excellent control for getting those crops established.”
Rates: “On the trees and transplants I used 1 package (2.2lbs) of the powder concentrate per 5 gallons of water and thoroughly sprayed each tree with wand. On the pumpkins I used an air blast sprayer a dilute rate (25 lbs to 400 gallons) and sprayed at 50 gallons per acre.” “I have recommended the product to other growers and I am looking forward to providing an updated field report next year.”
June 26: 1st application. Significant damage to peach tree at the time of the first application of the deer repellent.
July 14: 2nd application. Tree recovering with some leaves clipped.
July 26: 3rd application.
August 21: 4th application. Trees are doing very well.
September 17: 5th application. Tree in foreground was destroyed by buck rub. I sprayed again sometime in October to be sure but did note note date. Only one more tree had rubbing damage.
