# Which apple trees for deer???



## Buck N Rut (Dec 8, 2005)

I'm working on doing some land management and besides creating thickets, pine stands, and food plots, I'd like to also plant some apple trees. I'm sure deer like any apples, but do they prefer one apple over another? If so, which should I plant? ....any other things recommended to plant?

Thanks 

Bryan


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## Buck N Rut (Dec 8, 2005)

*ttt*

anyone?


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## Arctic Cat Chic (Aug 16, 2005)

Gosh, I have yet to find an apple that my deer don't gobble right up. I feed mainly store bought, lol....but they eat up the crap applies like there's no tomorrow. (these are deer that come in my yard for acorns & the treats I leave them. NO hunting on this property)

My guess is you're safe which ever way you go. One that will yield lots.


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## Arctic Cat Chic (Aug 16, 2005)

Egads.

I ment to say CRAB apples. 

New keyboard.


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## bardman (Oct 18, 2006)

any that will produce fruit. It really doesnt matter. An apple or pear, it really doesnt matter. Just make sure you fertilize them every year.


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## heh (Oct 28, 2002)

*apples*

Some apples drop earlier than others, if you want to use them to lure deer in during hunting season, you might look into some that stay on later in the season. heh


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## rcmjr (Jan 31, 2007)

our old house had johnathans and red delicious, they ate 'em all. by early fall the apples would be gone as far as they could reach on their hind legs.


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## Fletch Fletcher (Oct 28, 2006)

heh said:


> Some apples drop earlier than others, if you want to use them to lure deer in during hunting season, you might look into some that stay on later in the season. heh


If this is true, you might want to consider planting multiple breeds so they drop at different times thus keeping the deer continuously coming to the area.


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## 88 PS190 (Sep 26, 2006)

just splice a few different varieties onto one tree.


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## 10 spot (Mar 5, 2006)

Try some Wolf River apple trees. The apples are HUGE.


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## swilk (Sep 14, 2005)

Do something to protect them when they are young. They will not produce fruit for a few years and the deer seem to like to destroy them given the chance.


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## MO_southpaw (Nov 2, 2006)

your best bet is to find a self pollinating (self fruitful too)apple tree. Youre not going for personal tastes so make it easy on yourself. apple trees need pollinators (bees) lots of trees to help make a good crop. 

Since youre not in the orchard business look for the easy trees. 

Look for a disease resistant self fuitful tree. Even if they are self pollinating its best if there are other apple trees around to help out the genetics and make it easier on the tree. 

Dwarf trees will bear fruit sooner and mature faster. 

since youre at it might as well add persimmon trees in the mix. Deer love em

if your area can grow honeysuckle bushes start them up too, they make a great browser in the spring and summer





Buck N Rut said:


> I'm working on doing some land management and besides creating thickets, pine stands, and food plots, I'd like to also plant some apple trees. I'm sure deer like any apples, but do they prefer one apple over another? If so, which should I plant? ....any other things recommended to plant?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Bryan


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## Roland (Oct 16, 2002)

Fletch Fletcher said:


> If this is true, you might want to consider planting multiple breeds so they drop at different times thus keeping the deer continuously coming to the area.



As a follow up you can do research and find trees that have apples in July all the way through Nov. Personally I have eight different types planted. Forget the dwarf and semi dwarf the deer will eat your trees to death. Go with standards and do your home work, remember you want lots of apples and big trees are the ticket.


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## drahthaar (Jun 21, 2005)

Here is what I have. First you need an enclosure to keep the bastages out while the trees are young. I have some early apples like Lodi apples that ripen early, Yellow delicious. Also have a Granny Smith. But the good apples for deer are ones that come in fall. Macintosh, all types. I also have several types of Crabapple. These I will leave on the trees to fall of late in fall and winter to keep giving the deer treats.
I also mixed in some plum trees as well.


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## spec (Dec 13, 2005)

Arkansas Blacks- late apple that stay a long time. Tour biggest concern will be getting to trees to a bearing age in good shape.


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## brangus (Mar 31, 2005)

I have some crabapple trees that the deer come to like trained monkeys. I don't hunt it but I have seen 10-15 deer at a time before. In the fall once, all the apples had fallen from the tree and the deer would pass thru every night looking for the apples, so one night there had been a bowl of apples sitting on the counter, I took them outside and threw them out towards the apple tree they hit the ground and rolled through the leaves and all of a sudden three deer came running to the apple tree. They heard the sound of apples dropping and they ran to it, I just stood there in the shadowes and watched them.


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## beretta16 (Nov 22, 2006)

Don't mean to hijack, but anybody know what kind of apple trees would grow well in Northern Minnesota?


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## Cmarti (Oct 15, 2004)

drahthaar said:


> Here is what I have. First you need an enclosure to keep the bastages out while the trees are young. I have some early apples like Lodi apples that ripen early, Yellow delicious. Also have a Granny Smith. But the good apples for deer are ones that come in fall. Macintosh, all types. I also have several types of Crabapple. These I will leave on the trees to fall of late in fall and winter to keep giving the deer treats.
> I also mixed in some plum trees as well.


Thanks, we are getting rid of our feeders and putting in some apple groves/mini orchards. We put ornamental plums and peaches in and the deer come up to the house to eat these undersized fruit. So we figure it was the way to go.  We are just going to scour the nursery departments at department stores and see what we can find. I will look for late bearing trees.


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## letemgrow (Dec 18, 2004)

qdm had a good article this past month on antique apples. Even gave different companies to buy them from. I personally bought some from www.morsenursery.com. They look really good, but with apple trees you are wasting your time if you don't guard them from deer they will basically eat them into the ground. 

Get some late and early dropping apples to plant in areas you can hunt with different winds and at different times of the year to keep each stand fresh. Can't go wrong with any variety though that is pest hardy and produces loads of apples. I just like keeping the old varieties around so that is why I like the antique/heritage apples. Most are also smaller and with amazing flavor. 

To me they are kind of like wild strawberries as opposed to the varities you can get from the nurseries. The wild ones have much better flavor.


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## labrat (Sep 19, 2005)

here is a link for a place to get apples or other trees/plants for wildlife

http://www.morsenursery.com/

I have not called myself, but several of the guys over on the QDMA forum have called and talked to Charlie Morse and find him to be very helpful. For those of you based further north, Morse Nursery is located in Battle Creek, Michigan so he can probably help you as well. He does have trees on the site that produce fruit at different time of year.


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## labrat (Sep 19, 2005)

looks like letemgrow beat me to it


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## ciscokid (Apr 26, 2006)

Thanks for the question. I had the same thing in mind for this year on some public land.


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## Buck N Rut (Dec 8, 2005)

Thanks again for the great ideas. I didn't think about planting them so they fall at different times, but it makes perfect sense. 

If anyone else has knowledge in this area, please, feel free to speak up.


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## mikel m14 (Jul 24, 2006)

I have a few crabapple trees and the deer eat them up. I also just planted a few golden delicious apple trees. It will be a long while before it fruits though.


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## LarryM (Feb 4, 2005)

Check out this site for MN apples:
http://www.maes.umn.edu/MNHardy/components/apples.asp


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## MNmike (Dec 27, 2003)

*Mn*

I have a place on fish lake by you berretta16, and have planted honeycrisp apple trees.

You have to protect them from deer and rabbits rather high up the tree until the tree has matured and taken to a hard bark. Otherwise the rabbits will chew the trunk bark right off and the deer the tender limbs.


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## Tarheeler (Nov 12, 2006)

get a local heirloom variety that will be your best bet- Talk to the old folks @ this and yes plant several varities and throw in some crab apples and maybe pears too while your at it--Good luck and GOD bless:wink:


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## radtuck (Aug 30, 2006)

bardman said:


> any that will produce fruit. It really doesnt matter. An apple or pear, it really doesnt matter. Just make sure you fertilize them every year.


You could fertilize them with the crap apples!
:wink:


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## Jshep40 (Aug 28, 2006)

*I am in the landscape business and have a few tricks*

1) Place Chiken wire 8 feet away in a circle arount the trees. We use T-posts in the ground the zip-tie the wire to in.

2) Drain pipe, the black plstic kinfd you buy at Home Depot. You can slice it then put it around the trunk of the tree. It keeps rabbits from eating it as well as bucks from rubbing the bark off.

3Make the hole extra big and fill it with a very fertile soil. Pete moss works well. Cow manure helps. At my own home I put dead carp around the whole about two feet down.

4) Learn how to properly trim the tree at a young age. You can maximize fruit harvest by trimming properly.

5) Spread the out. Apple trees trimmed properly will grow outword leave a lot of room. You are planting for deer so you want big trees, I would go no less the thirty feet apaprt.

6) Spray them when the fruit forms, it is cheap and really helps increse the the production of the tree.

7) Cut of brancehes that do not produce fruit. Look at the tree and if you see a large branceh with no a just a few apples cut it off.

Any otheer questions ask. If you are in Michigan I get landscapoer discounts. I can get you my price.


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## crazy wolf (Sep 11, 2006)

Golden delicious apple trees. Heres something ya might want to try also, Hosta plants. Seriously they love them. Crazy Wolf.


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## beretta16 (Nov 22, 2006)

crazy wolf said:


> Golden delicious apple trees. Heres something ya might want to try also, Hosta plants. Seriously they love them. Crazy Wolf.


Very true, and they grow back every year. The deer in the middle of the city came around and ate all the leave off our hostas and we have a bunch of them. They just look like shoots of celery coming out of the ground now.


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## atp (Oct 30, 2006)

I agree w/some of the others - plant so they drop at different times.
An early season setup near some trees that were dropping would be hard to beat. Check out www.gurneys.com - they sell several. Plus you can figure out which zone you are in and make sure you are getting trees that will work in your area. They also have information there that will help you get an idea of hardiness and when the fruit rippens. It looks like most of the trees are 2 - 4 feet and around $20 - $30. I have no clue if that's a good price or not.


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## spoco57 (Aug 31, 2005)

My neighbor has a couple of those trees that have three varieties grafted onto one rootstock. So the tree has 3 varieties growing on it. The great thing about it is that they all come ripe at slightly different times, so the deer are there almost from the time his trees set fruit to well into the late fall/early winter. They LOVE those trees! I'm not too sure but you may be able to pick up the mixed variety trees at nurseries.


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## letemgrow (Dec 18, 2004)

Tarheeler said:


> get a local heirloom variety that will be your best bet- Talk to the old folks @ this and yes plant several varities and throw in some crab apples and maybe pears too while your at it--Good luck and GOD bless:wink:


couldn't agree more. I will be putting different heritage varieties of apples out that drop at different times along with some pear trees and crab apples. variety is the spice of life and can mean the difference in a late season hot spot or a barren tundra.


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