This tree was fine when watered Wednesday, and this morning looked like this:







There were zero roots left and the entire trees was eaten almost to the soil line. Gopher was quick. No sign of activity within 50 feet of this tree. Set traps, and he will most likely be dead by morning.

This was a duplicate Panachee so not a major tragedy - it can be replaced.

Perhaps you will find a striped gopher. Sorry to hear about your tree. I would give you mine but it is just a Home Depot tree and would not be as good as the back-up you already have.

Still, Sorry to hear your story.....! Maybe you should try some electric high frequency device!

If you have not yet tossed the tree in the trash you might try to take a few cuttings and soak them in water for a day or so. I have managed to revive cuttings that look as dry as your tree and still get them to pull through. Might be an interesting experiment.

You mean, try to save those branches like those in the picture below??? LOL.

Those branches were broken by some large animal (likely opossum or raccoon) that was eating the figs off of my Smith tree. Those all came from my tree. And that animal ate all of those figs....even some green ones. I have ruled out the possibility of it being an alligator as their legs are too short.  My tree should produce a second crop and I hope to be better prepared for whatever critter that comes by. I just wish I knew what it was that was doing similar damage all over my orchard.

Dan
Semper Fi-cus

Jon, I feel your pain! I had to run out and buy a trap yesterday. Coons almost broke my Venture and Reverse fig tree. They cleaned out my container Sals, HC, VdB figs every night. Well it stops today!

Jon,
In situations like this where obviously the bottom half is beyond repair, have you had any success in getting the limbs to root?

@Dan
I have had cuttings that fell out of the plastic bag during shipping and spent several days without water. The bark was completely wrinkled and the cuttings felt completely dry. When I tried to bend them there was a little elasticity left so I decided to give them a shot. I soaked the entire cuttings in water for 48 hours and then noticed that the bark looked less wrinkled. after that I wrapped them up in paper towel just as I do with my other cuttings. They were slow to root but I now have two fig trees that are putting out roots and leaves. That is why I was making the suggestion to Jon. I could not tell from the picture just how dry the branches were.

I have another large tree of this variety (Panachee), so was not concerned about trying to root these twigs. If this had been something that I could not replace, I would have definitely cut it up into pieces and tried to root them, Nothing to lose by trying.

Forgot to mention that the perpetrator to the trap first night and is no more.