You have time for cages. A roll of hog wire or concrete reinforcement mesh will make a bunch. They aren’t really going to be handy until the leaves start to emerge March/April.

I like the tubes for being able to spray around them the first few years so they don't get swallowed by other stuff but I have started using much shorter tubes in the 18-24" range. The long tubes just didn't seem necessary and I could cut them in half and get two for one. Not knocking your long tubes but for me they are more hassle (weeds inside the tube outgrowing the tree and wasp primarily) than short tubes. YMMV

Word to the wise: don’t even say the word “roundup” around fruit trees. I’ve killed more young fruit trees than I care to admit that way.

I spray my orchard every year with gly and prowl h2o. I do it with a boom sprayer, with the boom mounted to my front end loader, just on one side and i only use the first two nozzles, which covers about 2ft. I spray both sides of the row and overlap just a little in the middle. Very little gets on the trunk of the tree and i can control that pretty good having the boom right in front of me. I do use a pretty weak mix, i guess. I put around 1oz gly/ 1 gal water or less. I also spray it before or right as the trees are putting on leaves. I try to do it about a week or two before i put out my first fertilizer so the trees arent competing for the fertilizer. It kills everything except the clover, which adds nitrogen before its over with. I also use it around the trees we plant each year with a hand sprayer, on a day with no wind, wand pointed straight down. If i happen to let the grass/weeds get tall, ill weedeat around them then spray. Ive had really goos success doing this and the young trees grow so much better when its clean around them. I would not try that with a mix of 2-3oz/ gallon of water, thats just too much. I can usually get by with two sprayings per year on the young trees. If i spray a second time on the older trees, i spray gramoxone(paraquat)/ prowl h20 in april. After that the trees will leaf out thick and shade out alot of the competing weeds/ grass up against the base of the tree.

Well it sounds like you’ve got more experience than me. Definitely killed apple trees on my place. Maybe stronger mixture on my end.