Damage caused to bark by a deerrubbing its antlers. A deerrub formed in southeast PA by a white tailed deer. A deerrub describes the abrasions caused by a male deerrubbing his forehead and antlers against the base of a tree. Aside from the obvious visual deterioration, deerrubbingtreebark is very bad for the tree they're rubbing on. Peeling back just the bark can open the tree up to damage from pests and disease, but typical deer damage doesn't stop there. Deerrub up against treebark to smooth out their growing antlers. But that process can wreck trees, especially the young, thin-barked species deer favor. Take, for example, Jean’s tree in Massachusetts. When deerrubtrees, they strip away the bark to reveal lignin and terpenes that glow when UV light from the sun hits them. These plant chemicals are not exposed in the surrounding bark and stand out by comparison. Young trees that are 1 to 6 inches in diameter with smooth bark — such as maples, lindens, birches and magnolias — are most likely to be damaged by deerrubs. Larger trees with smooth bark, as well as clump-form trees, can also be damaged. I had a buck rub off a lot of bark on a young sweet gum tree. He rubbed off the outer bark almost a foot long and got to the inner bark in about a 5-6 inch are… Aspen tree turning a glorious shade of gold as October comes to a close. The bark damage is thanks to local mule deer who rub their coats for a good scratch. While a tree guard doesn’t prevent the buck from rubbing his antlers on the tree, it lessens the likelihood of damage to the bark. It’s also easy to apply and can be easily removed in spring. Deer Repellent. Using a spectrometer in pitch-black conditions, they blasted these markers with UV light to measure what reflected back. Treesrubbed by deer antlers showed significantly higher irradiance (brightness) than untouched bark, exactly at the wavelengths at which deer eyes are most sensitive. The deer have rubbed the bark off all around on one tree for 18 inches and one one side of the other for at least 12 inches very recently. If a deerrubs their antlers on a tree with a guard, the guard blocks the antlers from making contact with the bark, preserving the tree’s health and inner layers, as seen in the images below. Tree protected from deer damage to trees - Burkholder PHC. Deer have rubbed all of the bark off of one of my trees, is there anything I can do to save it? Deerrubbing can destroy landscape plants. After the damage is done, there is not much that can be done other than care for the tree to promote faster healing. We searched far and wide and found only offhand remarks about the kind of damage deerrubbing could do to oak bark. Most of the damage dealt with has to do with deer stunting or killing young trees by eating the budding tips of the branches. RM2K54W1C–European fallow deer (dama dama) male (buck), rubbing and scraping treebark to mark his territory, NRW, Germany.Stock Photo Recent damage to the bark of a young apple tree caused by the rubbing of horns against it by a male muntjac deer.
