I had a bunch of creeping blue spruce in my yard that was housing an entire community of voles (I think they were pine voles). I now have only a couple and am still working to get rid of them. I am not sure which of the following helped, but here is everything I did:

* Removed all of the creeping juniper. That is, I took away as much above ground shelter for them.
* Hardware mesh around all fruit trees. This is mainly for rabbits and regular voles. Pine voles seem to burrow into my tree mounds at the base-- far away from the mesh.
* Spread Mole/Vole repellent around all my trees in a 4' radius. I forget the brand-- yellow bag, castor oil-based small granules.
* Placed terad poison in pvc pipes near my trees.
* Though not mine, we have outside neighborhood cats that roam the area. The voles persisted with the cats when they had so much cover. With the cover gone, maybe the cats could catch more.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you which of the above worked. I would guess that the repellent worked to some degree because I have not seen any of the tell tale holes in my tree mounds for a year since using it. The one hole I found over the winter was in an untreated section of my yard.

I believe the directions on the repellent said to 'herd' them by starting the treatment in one area and pushing them out. I didn't bother with this. I just protected the trees that I care about.

I hope this helps.

I haven't thought about these critters in a while, but your post made me do another search. See the link below. I believe the repellent I have is only effective on below-ground rodents. The castor oil permeates the ground and irritates them when they burrow. I doubt it will do anything for meadow voles if they like to stay above ground and chew the trunk. It seems to me that the meadow voles are easier to control with mesh.

The key is figuring out which kind you have. www.volecontrol.com has some more pictures and descriptions on the different types.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Voles

I've used Mole killer from Agway and the person working there said it worked on voles and two years later I haven't had vole issues.

Having researched what commercial growers do, I either poison them or trap them like house mice under trays I place by my fruit trees. The important thing is to deal with them in the fall when there's not too much food but before snow cover.

Pine voles are primarily subterranean and I've been told can only be trapped or poisoned near the surface in the fall.

I'm aware of no research about repellents, but I know these type of products are BS more often than not.

Meadow vole damage can be stopped by wrapping the trunks with plastic spirals or other products designed for the purpose.

Could be BS, but they would come up from my very close to the ground juniper type evergreen bushes in my front yard tunnel all through them and attack my flowers roots too. Then when we had a good snow on the ground make some nice tunnels eating a pathway through my front lawn grasses. After using the Agway mole killer it has stopped for two years. My neighbor had the same issues had many tunnels all through his landscaping.

Sorry I missed the part where HM was talking about the repellent, I use the Killer and it seems to work.

This post was edited by johnthecook on Tue, Apr 22, 14 at 21:24