Week of August 1, 2021

CRITTER CONTROL is a constant activity at TAProots Farm, due to the populations of songbirds, wild turkeys, red foxes, woodchucks, raccoons, and chipmunks, but nothing comes close to the damage from the overabundance of white-tailed deer who reside in the Keuka Lake State Park, just across the road from TAProots Farm. They are seen everyday, especially at dusk, with frequent twin fawns. Several types of defenses are used to protect our crops. Deer will destroy young grape vines by eating the buds and new vines, prevented by “blue tubes” which are a heavy sheet of plastic inside a tube of blue plastic. These are placed over the newly planted grape vine so that buds are protected as they emerge. The tubes are three feet high. Our 500 Cabernet franc vines this spring have grown through the top and are now being browsed but not so heavily as to destroy the vine. The next defense is bird netting, cut in 100 foot by 15 foot pieces so that they can fit over the grape trellises and are tied with orange plastic ties underneath. We have used this on Reisling vines just before harvest, and this year for the table grapes, which previously were entirely eaten before they ripened. We also net our blueberries which are prone to bird and deer predation on their smaller bushes. Other defenses are used to protect fruit trees which are heavily browsed as saplings. We use cages consisting of 4 foot rabbit wire loops, two to three feet in diameter, held down with wooden stakes to keep them from blowing away. The goal is to allow the tree to attain a height of five feet above which browsing isn’t an issue. We also cage our Carpathian walnut tree to prevent buck deer from girdling the tree while rubbing the velvet off their antlers. Most of our fruit trees also have white trunk covers to prevent sun scald of the bark in the winter. On Keuka Bluff, these extra measures allow us to harvest the fruit before the deer do it for us.