Protecting dragon fruit from gophers

[MorroBay]

I’m going to plant a bunch of dragon fruit in a heavily gopher infested area.  Too big of a space to trap and poison isn’t my thing.  How bad are gophers on dragon fruit roots?  What sized wire baskets do you folks suggest?  Was looking at something like these.

https://www.amazon.com/RootGuardTM-Original-Gopher-Baskets-5-Gallon/dp/B07L566JGY/ref=sr_1_8?crid=L3X8MAIBZ67E&dchild=1&keywords=gopher+baskets+for+plants&qid=1608316648&sprefix=Gopher+basket%2Caps%2C287&sr=8-8

[spaugh]

Plant them in 15gal pots half buried, with lots of half in holes drilled in the buried half.  And trap the gophers, I doubt the area is too big.  I keep many acres cleared.

[MorroBay]

How many cuttings to a 15 gallon?  Any reason a bucket with holes drilled works better than a mesh root bag?  I kinda want to keep the area natural looking without eyesore buckets sticking out of the ground.

[MorroBay]

What gopher traps are you using?  I got gophers and ground squirrels.

[spaugh]

You can use a gopher basket, they don't last as long as plastic.  I have a few plants in 15gal pots and a bunch unprotected in ground.  Its best to just keep on top of the gophers instead of screwing with gopher protection imo.  Even if it doesn't kill the plant if a gopher eats at your plants with a net on them, its going to still do a lot of damage. 

The best traps I've tried are the gophenator trap. 

[MorroBay]

Yeah, those style of traps are not going to work.  The dragon fruit is going in along a chain link fence that “might” be on city property but my neighborhood has long tradition of gardening the section of fence line to beautify it.  The city has been cool and just weed wacks around anything the neighborhood plants but I don’t want to risk anyone’s animals or kids getting injured.  Our local gorilla gardening club has planted many areas and the city has been very supportive so everything we do is taken into consideration as far as safety and keeping the landscape aesthetically pleasing.

How many cuttings should I put in a 15 gallon?  I figure I can spray paint the planters tan and plant some natural grasses in front of them.

[spaugh]

I just put 1 plant per pot.  Its going to get big being in the ground.  You can just leave a few inches exposed above ground, I dont think it looks that bad.  Or bury it completwly and use 5gal instead. 

The traps go underground also, you put them into the tunnel and then cover the hole.  Doubtful anyone would touch one.  Once you get good with the traps, its usually just a few hours to catch the one you are after.  Maybe your crew could go and all familiarize yourselves with the traps and eradicate them.  Having a gofer infested gro area is a recipe for failure IMO. 

[MorroBay]

Unfortunately the area I’m going to plant is a 20’ wide strip the length of my block.  The area on the other side of the fence is cattle land and I can’t access it to trap so 95% of the gophers are on that side spilling over.  Other sections of the fence are planted with various vines, succulents and cactus and none seem to be suffering from the gophers so we’ll see how it goes.