As long as the moose did not eat down below the graft your apple tree will be fine; however, if it get eaten by deer or moose every year you may never get apples. You should also be aware of rabbits and voles. They will eat the bark of your trees all the way around and that will kill your trees. That happened to me with voles to one of my trees and I had to make 4 bridge-grafts to save it. I was a little leery of trying it as I had never done anything like that before, but....I figured--what have I got to lose. Low and behold, it worked! The tree survived and even produced it's first 4 apples that summer. THANK YOU YOU TUBE!!! It would be a good idea to do some research on repelling those pests OR protecting your trees until they get older older and have tougher bark. Some years ago I had a 5 year old Norkent Apple have it's bark stripped off all the way around so I am not sure how old they need to be before they are tough enough....I guess when it get thick and gnarly. One thing I can share with you though, is if you cut the dead tree off at the ground. the the rootstock will grow you a beautiful blooming crabapple tree. The crab apples are usually very small but the birds enjoy them. One thing I have noticed...I have three apple trees that died over the years from voles or some other reason--the voles never touch those ones. Something they don't like I guess. The regrown crabapples were all from different type apples. The blossoms all look different so I would hazard a guess that they just don't like crab apple bark. The first one that the voles ate is now ten years old, 25 feet tall and has a butt about 7" thick. My success with the bridge grafts has encouraged me to try grafting some hardy apple types onto it this spring. Wish me luck.
