shoot regrowth after deer damage

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mttowns
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Location: Tuxedo, NY zone 6a

shoot regrowth after deer damage

Post by mttowns »

Hello,

I checked my various fargesia species today and found that deer (presumably) had folded, spindled and mutilated about a dozen shoots total on four different plants. One in particular I had very high hopes for this year, and it had 5 damaged. Three of the plants were planted in April 2018, one this past April (all #5 size at planting). Most of the damaged shoots have about 4-6 inches left.

Question is can/will these shoots recover and grow back to something near their original potential, or is the damage permanent? Thank you.

Mike
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needmore
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Re: shoot regrowth after deer damage

Post by needmore »

Mike, greetings, if the tip of the shoot is nibbled or snapped off that shoot is done going up. If it happens to a shoot that has some height before the damage it may branch out below that damage point but in general a shoot is done for if the tip is whacked.
Brad Salmon, zone 12B Kea'au, HI
http://www.needmorebamboo.com
mttowns
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jun 16, 2019 9:33 pm
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Location: Tuxedo, NY zone 6a

Re: shoot regrowth after deer damage

Post by mttowns »

Thanks for the response. I had a new container of repellent sitting around. Going forward I'll be using it more regularly.

So a followup - I guess I'll find out soon enough, but given that the shoots were probably 1/3 to 1/2 full size when damaged, should I expect a few new shoots to come up this summer using the energy that would have finished the lost ones, or is shooting done for the year?

Mike T.
Alan_L
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Re: shoot regrowth after deer damage

Post by Alan_L »

On my groves (with several escaped rhizomes), after I knocked over all out-of-bounds shoots the plant put out a few more shoots a few more times. It won't go on all summer though.
My Phyllostachys aureosulcata (Yellow Groove) shoots late April. A couple of days ago it sent out another shoot in an area I've removed shoots 2-3 times already. This is probably the last one though.

That being said, I just remembered that you said Fargesia -- many of the species in that group will put out another flush of shoots at the end of the summer or early autumn.
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