FOREST PEST MANAGEMENT
Longridge offers an extensive range of forest pest management services, including animal and plant pest control. We value your local knowledge, so let us work with you to come up with a forest management plan to suit your needs.
The control of animal pests in the early stages of establishing a forest is critical for plant survival. Further down the line, keeping on top of these pests in a well-established forest is vitally important, both for the block in question and for the surrounding land.
Longridge can offer regular inspections for both weed and plant pest control and going forward we will devise a plan to suit your forest’s needs. Some pests are more common than others, below is a list of those that we can help manage.
Hares and Rabbits
Hares and rabbits cause damage to freshly planted seedlings and are more abundant in areas close to farmland.
Rabbits will dig around plants and eat leaves and stems.
Hares will slice off the seedlings cleanly, damaging or killing them.
Deer
Deer can cause significant damage to a native or production forest.
- Eat seedlings and saplings
- Graze the understory
- Rub bark off the trees with antlers
Goats
Goats usually leave clean-cut shoots and leaves as a feeding sign and can damage the stems, leaving ragged wood edges.
- Graze the understory
- Graze and consume substantial numbers of new seedlings
- Consume bark and ringbark poles
- Feed standing on their hind legs, with a reach of up to 2m
- Climb trees
Pigs
Pigs cause damage to the ground surface by pig rooting the soil (digging up soil with their noses), mainly in damper areas.
- Rub on trees, thereby removing the bark and killing them
- Coat the trees with mud and hair and mark the tree with tusk marks
Possums
Possums are very damaging to young stands of trees, especially in the winter and spring when other sources of nutrition become hard to find. Possum damage can be economically significant if their population is allowed to build up over time, as the resulting stunted growth will see a significant decrease in production.
From an ecological viewpoint, the destruction wrought by possums isn't limited to vegetation. They are voracious predators, and will eat both the eggs and chicks of native birds, as well as a multitude of important insect species. Possums are more commonly found in areas where pines have been planted near natives or scrub.
- Bend and break branches in the upper crown (this is often the first sign of possum activity)
- Graze the terminal shoots of pine seedlings, stripping the bark of young stems
- Remove needles and cones, bend and break terminal shoots and lateral branches in the upper part of the tree
Wallabies
Wallabies will graze the understory and young seedlings, biting off some or all of the leaf.
- Damage native species
- Damage crops and young trees
- Compete with other livestock
- Capable of destroying a young forest