Gophers

SteveM · 2023-06-15T17:05:19+00:00

I am Carl in Caddyshack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NlQiQfC4zQ The wet winter resulted in a great supply of food for the mother gophers this year. Now...

Bessie

Still seeing gopher activity. Luckily the really "BAD" gopher is eating seedlings I planned to cull, but heading towards some keepers.
Mad scientist approach continues.... Grocery Outlet had this half gallon jug of chili sauce for $5. I'll poke some holes near the Dahlia plants in danger of being eaten, and pour a diluted solution of this stuff down the holes.

silvarerum

I have no solutions but just want to say I feel the pain here. I have no flowers this year after rodents discovered the tasty snack that is dahlias. I blame tulip bulbs. I have in the past forced a lot of tulips in crates. I made a compost pile of spent bulbs. This, I believe, created an overflow of rodents and now the rodents are hungry. My dahlias were eaten down to the nubs over and over. They dug out tubers. I used a product called Rodent A-Way or something from hardware store that smells like hot pepper and garlic. It works--until it rains and since southern VT is now a rainforest it kept getting washed away. If I didnt' make it outside fast enough any new growth would be eaten by the time I got outside to reapply.

We have a lot of owls in our woods so I don't want to use poison. But my very old Jack Russell died this winter and it might be time for a new one!

Teddahlia

We have had gophers eat potentially prize winning dahlias and also they have eaten many of the loser first year dahlias. They are just looking for a good meal. I am a worthless trapper and will not use poison. So, we hire at great expense a professional trapper who does an excellent job. He used to do some trapping at Swan Island Dahlias and knew Nick Gitts.
Nick Jr. learned how to trap gophers and took over. I must say that Oregon gophers are easy to control compared to California gophers. I just yesterday had a conversion with a Californian and the gopher wars there are legendary. In Washington State a grower had some interesting stories about gophers and has nothing good to say about them.

hobbity101

LoriDee Can I ask how much that cost?

LoriDee

hobbity101 sorry, I honestly forgot what we paid, we had a quarterly pest service & I think we paid an extra something to add on the gopher thing, maybe $175/quarter which included 1 hour of the perx machine in addition to spraying for the regular bugs, but he was set up for backyards & didn't want to do (& complained about) our 2 acre rural plot after treating it a time or 2/year. I think it is in the $125/hr range? we are going to look for another company. I think it would be good to treat in the spring when they are waking up & again when you see any activity. It can't be done if it is too cold out but it really made a difference the first year after 1 treatment

Teddahlia

Gophers trappers here charge a "setting fee" of $100- and I believe our guy charges $40.00 per catch after that. He is very good and has caught every one that was in our garden last year and then this year caught the one near our garden. None anymore in our garden but giant sized moles abound. They only eat worms and bugs but leave big piles of dirt. He would trap them if I paid him but they are no threat to the dahlias.

Bessie

The 1 gallon sunk pot experiment is mostly a fail. Pots that don't have heavy duty plastic are still a gopher target. Just dug this up. Damage to the Dahlia was seen several weeks ago. They stop eating when they come to the stalk.

Teddahlia

Legendary California gophers! I first heard about them about 10 years ago when a cut flower seller told me he grew his dahlias in 2 gallon pots. Perhaps they are more gopher resistant.

Steve Lamb(Agape ) is moving back to Washington State because of the gophers and the cool climate in Eureka. He is unable to sell a very nice trial garden entry because the gophers ate most of them.

Bessie

Teddahlia I am not surprised someone would move to garden successfully. I just dug up a massive tuber clump from a second year seedling, and it was half eaten. I guess I got lucky last year when it overwintered in the same spot. I'm unsure of my strategy for growing dahlias for next year, at this point.

blown_dry

Teddahlia I didn't know there was a breeder in my area! Well, not anymore. Yes, they go right through heavy plastic, however I am very much in town and have never seen a gopher on my lot. The rats, skunks, possums and raccoons don't care about the dahlias.

Bessie

Gopher January 2025 update: those pests are still evident in two of the four raised vegetable beds, that also have been used to grow dahlias. There's also some minor activity outside the raised beds.
Newest brainstorm: Scour my husbands meds and other meds/vitamins for potential lethal (to gophers) materials. Vitamin D3 was chosen for it's potential to kill gophers. I'm not sure how I moved in the direction of D3 softgels, but I'm very optimistic! After placing three of these baits in place in the gopher tunnel runs, I went on to more research. I found that D3(cholecalciferol) has been researched for pest control.
I engaged my (reluctant) husband to take a few photos.

Krista

Bessie this looks downright gourmet! 🙌

LoriDee

Bessie Wow! I need to try that too! Let us know if you see less gopher action & evidence of them munching on the poison potatoes 😊

SteveM

Bessie Cholecalciferol has been used in rat and mice poisons for quite some time. The labels on these products also contain a warning to keep away from pets and domestic animals. I don't know what the toxic dose is for a dog or cat but is something to consider.
https://docs.diypestcontrol.com/SPEC/LABLES-2/Terad3_Blox_Label.pdf

Bessie

Krista looking at the photos, you'd think I did a bunch of staging for the photos. Nothing could be further from the truth. I was on a mission. Also, something told me to not leave my human scent on the bait, thus the gloves.

Bessie

LoriDee I'll report back. I'm hopeful. Tomorrow I will wet down the ground to better be able to see any new activity.

Bessie

SteveM I didn't know that Cholecalciferol has been used in poisons of rodents, until I did the research yesterday. Luckily, there are no dogs or cats in my fenced yard or my general area, and the bait is always placed in a tunnel and covered. The Merck's Veterinary Manual discusses the acute dose(ingestion all at one time) and the median lethal dose(ingestion over time) all based on mg/kg of body weight. Math was always my best subject in school, but not having done math calculations in quite a while, it hurt my brain to figure out how many D3 pills would kill a 1/2 kilogram weight gopher. I calculated it would take 2 to 10 gels to kill a gopher in a 12-48 hour time frame. Also, the research study I referenced made it clear that follow up treatment is necessary in the coming months as new gopher populations come in ( there is a vacant piece of grassy land behind my yard).

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