bio-degradable tree and hedge guard trial - receive 200 free vole and rabbit guards!

[Aulden]

Chestnut Bio has been working for 3 years on an innovate UK Smart Grant to design a new bio-plastic, made from plant sugars and natural minerals, that will last 5 years protecting trees from animal attack (deer, rabbit and vole). The guards then breakdown, fall to the ground and bio-degrade to biomass, water and Co2 through microbial activity in the soil, removing the need for collection, and removing all micro plastics and toxins from tree and hedge protection.
This research has been successful and we have the funding to run a national trial with 8000 guards. We are seeking sites across the UK, being planted in February and March 2023, where rabbit (0.6m) and vole (0.2m) guards will be used in hedge or tree planting. Each selected site will receive up to 200 of each guard without charge.
Sites selected will be asked to carry out a photographic survey annually of the guards and share this via email with the team at Chestnut Bio.
Our goal is to build up a picture of real world performance in the many different environments and soil conditions nationally.
To participate, email your site location and requirement of vole and/or rabbit guards up to a maximum of 200 of each to [email protected]

More information of our material is attached should you be interested.

many thanks

 

[BRB John]

Finally! I've always hated those dam plastic spiral protectors! No one ever comes back to remove them so they end up being absorbed by the tree or left littering the woodland floor.
Wasn't planning on planting 200 trees but this might just convince me

 

[Aulden]

Finally! I've always hated those dam plastic spiral protectors! No one ever comes back to remove them so they end up being absorbed by the tree or left littering the woodland floor.
Wasn't planning on planting 200 trees but this might just convince me

Thank you!! There is plenty of government support for tree planting at the moment and some very interesting carbon capture programmes being developed. The UK is missing its annual target of planting 30,000 hectares of new trees by almost a half at the moment so it will need engagement across the farming sector if it is to get anywhere near this! If we can help by removing plastics so much the better..... Let me know if you decide to go ahead and I will add you to the map. all the best Auden

 

[Goweresque]

If I planted trees and the tree guards disintegrated after 5 years I wouldn't be very happy, as there's a good chance the deer would then eat the lot. I doubt that trees planted as whips will be big enough after only 5 years to be safe from deer (or indeed rabbit) predation.

 

[ollie989898]

Tree guards and spirals are a fudging blight on the countryside and they should never have been legal to use in the first place. They are everywhere. Shooting the fudging deer would have been easier and better for the environment.

 

[Aulden]

If I planted trees and the tree guards disintegrated after 5 years I wouldn't be very happy, as there's a good chance the deer would then eat the lot. I doubt that trees planted as whips will be big enough after only 5 years to be safe from deer (or indeed rabbit) predation.

Thank you very much for responding.

I would agree totally that if a tree guard stopped guarding against deer, rabbit or vole before a tree was big enough to survive those animals interets it would be a pointless guard.

However all the research from every forestry organisation in the UK that has been advising the tree guard sector, is that 5 years is the point where a tree is past the point where a deer is going to kill a tree.

We have all been working to that brief.

More than happy to hear this forums opinion on that advice as we can change the formula to last longer if the farming sector as a whole believes this is required.

 

[BRB John]

If I planted trees and the tree guards disintegrated after 5 years I wouldn't be very happy, as there's a good chance the deer would then eat the lot. I doubt that trees planted as whips will be big enough after only 5 years to be safe from deer (or indeed rabbit) predation.

Generally tree guards are never for deer protection they'd need to be 5ft high to stop that. The main targets is rabbits.
I would of thought 3 years should be plenty.