BULB FIELDS DAMAGED: FINANCIAL DISASTER FOR GROWERS

[Lvandelft]

After long negotiations with several authorities the village where the most growers are living,
decided to invest in a temporary electric fence.
There are 5 wires of which 3 are electric.
A part of this fence is almost not visible from the road, because placed in a nature
area behind trees, with some small gates for walkers in the area.

[gote]

That this fence is not strong enough is to see on the second one.

That I get away with chicken net is because the deer have elsewhere to go. If they really wanted to they could break through - at least a moose could. To be safe, I have, however, strengtened the fence by having barbed wire supporting the top edge on the backside where it is not seen and wooden laths in many places elsewhere.

Göte 

[Ezeiza]

Luit,  some friends in the States swear by human hair. Of course for normal/small plots, not valid for large estates. They hang plastic mesh bags with human hair, but this must not be Claudia Schiffer's so to speak, but hair that has not been washed for several days. Fortunately we do not have the deer problem here so can not tell by myself. What they do is to place such bags in a few spots where the wind would carry the "aroma" to the deer, that has an extremely fine sense of smell.

Nothing is lost with trying, specially since the ingredients are so cheap.

best

[Lvandelft]

Thank you for this Alberto, I will pass this on to a grower I know there.
Never heard of it, but can imagine that it makes sense.

The making of provisoric fencing a problem for cyclists too. (there are in weekends thousands of them in this particular area.)
I show some pictures of a special road for cyclists.

[Ezeiza]

Well, they say it works well.

I was thinking of the expense of millions (?) of gulden in fences (that deer can clear!) against a few cents of dirty hair and some discarded vegetable mesh bags.

[gote]

Well, they say it works well.

I was thinking of the expense of millions (?) of gulden in fences (that deer can clear!) against a few cents of dirty hair and some discarded vegetable mesh bags.

All sorts of smelly things have been recommended against deer in my country. They rarely work. However, someone has his pet plant eaten by a deer and puts something up. Since the deer has already eaten it doesn ot come back and this is then attributed to whatever was put up.
My wife sprayed the crocuses in our lawn with one of those mixtures. next morning 80% were eaten. My experience and I am very far from alone in this is that only A pet wolf, A good gun or a fence helps.
Even wolf's urine has been tried. First the deer avoid it - then they learn that there is no wolf and ignore it.
To rely on smells against deers or rodents is to court disaster. Fritillaria imperialis is said (by vendors) to keep voles away. Well I had a mixed planting of that and various Lilium c-c distance of bulbs about 15 cm. The voles destroyed all lilies and left the Fritillarias.
We must also keep in mind that the situation is different in different countries. In the Dutch bulb-areas there are few forests where the deer have a natural habitat. In the US the deer can roam and it is easier to keep them out.
Göte

[Ezeiza]

The question is: have YOU tried dirty human hair? I can not tell by myself but those that use it say it works. I have no personal reasons to recommend it or bring it down as we have no deer here, but I imagine the logic behind it is that a human is hiding among the shrubs (from the deer point of view).
Urine is obviously to degrade after a short time and go into the air, same for other odours. What they say is that deer avoid getting into an enclosure where they sense human "scent".

[Joakim B]

Alberto if the animals are hunted hard by humans I believe it works but if the animals are not hunted and even shows no fear of humans that they can see, since they are not hunted at the bulb fields they have no reason to be scared of human hair.
Smelly things seem to make them chose other food if they have easy access to it but if no other food is available I doubt it works. So if one have some of the tulips protected by stinky things they would be left alone and the deers would eat the other tulips.
We have tried a lot of mixes with some success but never a whole protection just a selected. If they are hungry they eat regardless of what is surrounding the tulips.
If they have much other options and are hunted harder so that they are afraid of humans then I believe it might work but since they are not hunted (yet) in the bulb fields and they even eat at daytime I doubt that it would work.

As Göte says there has been a lot of tests in Sweden and only a few is working and only if there is alternatives for the animals to eat. This question is very often up in several Swedish forums so I base this not only on my own experience.
Kind regards
Joakim

[Ezeiza]

Thanks Joakim. I see the point; apparently in the States deer are hunted on a regular basis and run away from humans. Again, all I can say is mention the tip in the hope that it would be of some help.


Regards

[Diane Whitehead]

 - Not in the U.S. but next door to it.

Our suburban deer are not afraid of people.  I pick berries on one side of the bush
and a deer is browsing on the other side of the same bush. 

Maybe I should not wash my hair so often.