Best zone 5 fruit/nut trees for whitetails

[crackshot]

I'm trying to put a post together of the best fruit and nut trees for zone 5. I'm located in western Pa. My main focus is whitetail and turkey hunting.

 

[Tree Spud]

Oaks ... specifically white oaks.

 

[yoderjac]

It really depends on how you define "best". Best can mean nutritional value, volume production, attraction, survival, and more. Some trees will perform better in some soils than others. In the case of a few trees for attraction you can do zone pushing if you have the time. If your goal is a significant food source, the best trees may be the lowest maintenance trees that provide food over the widest time frame. Trees for browse for deer may be quite different than trees for mast. Trees producing large nuts may be fine for deer but be difficult for turkey, especially young turkey to swallow.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Bowsnbucks]

My camp is at the border of zones 5 & 6 in N.C. Pa. We've had really good success with Liberty, Enterprise, Goldrush, Wolf River, N.Y. 35 "Bonkers" ( to name a few stalwarts of regular apples ). For crabs, our best ones so far are All-Winter-Hangover, Winter Wildlife, Trailman, Dolgo, Kerr & Chestnut - all from SLN. We have lots more varieties of apples and crabs, but these have done well enough that I feel comfortable recommending them.

As for nuts, white, red and chestnut oaks are great for wildlife, but if you're planting new trees - you won't see nuts for 20 to 30 years. Pin oaks will make nuts sooner, but you're still looking at 15 years if you buy 1 B&B tree. I planted a B&B pin oak in my yard 31 years ago, and watched it's progress. We are planting several Chinese chestnuts this spring based on reports of nuts in 6 to 10 years. We hope they come through in 6 years or so. Chinese chestnuts are blight resistant, and are the same chestnuts you buy at the grocery store before the holidays.

Some of the guys on here plant hazlenuts for wildlife. They make smaller nuts sooner - from reports and articles written. We have none of those mainly because bears would destroy them. If we didn't have so many bears, I'd plant hazlenuts in a heartbeat. Good for turkeys and grouse.

 

[Jhoss]

Hazelnuts in 5 to 6 years. Cage them or deer will chow them to the ground.

 

[Apple Junkie]

Honestly, we plenty of mature oaks on our property, so I have not looked at those, and can’t make any recommendations. I focus on apples because there are not a lot of wild ones around, so we seem to be able to pull deer in from a fairly wide range to an area we can cover during the hunting season. The deer frequent this area from July through January to snatch up dropped apples. Just some thoughts for you consider…

My first consideration is the rootstocks trees are grafted to. My preferred rootstocks are the MM.111 and B.118. These rootstocks result in a tree that are 85% to 90% the size of a standard size tree, but come into production a year or two earlier. They are well anchored and long lived.

My top apple varieties for zone 5, would be (in no particular order):
Ida Red – Ripens mid-October, heavy crops, drops steady through mid-January, good eater.
Franklin – Ripens late October, bears heavy annual crops, vigorous, good resistance.
Wikson Crab – Ripens mid-October, bears heavy annual crops, bears early, vigorous.
Enterprise – Ripens early November, good crops, very vigorous, hangs into February.
Florina - Ripens mid-October, vigorous, bears early, excellent resistance, hangs late.

I have all these planted in my wildlife orchard, but only the Ida Red is old enough to be regularly producing apples that I can confirm health, crop size, and ripe/hang dates. Good luck in your selection and planting process. It’s fun to watch and compare as your trees mature.

 

[H20fwler]

Agree with everything posted above.
I’m a couple hundred miles straight west if you, my soil is loamy clay to heavy clay.
For nut trees that have grown fairly fast are low maintenance and work for me are pinoak and Chinese chestnut.
Apple trees Liberty/Arkansas Black/Enterprise/Galarina... for crabs I really like the Northern Whitetail Crabs with the DropTine being my favorite.
Pear trees Kiefer/Moonglow/Olympic and from Wildlife Group the Gilmer Christmas/Becton/Gate/Ms Lanene.

I will also add since you specified turkeys, the smaller fruit crab apples that are normally more for ornamental like sargentii or similar, high bush cranberry, button bush and hazelnuts.

 

[Telemark]

I can see how this would become addicting. I'm spending absurd amounts of time online reading about fruit trees. I think I have watched every grafting video on youtube. Can't wait to get my first trees in the ground.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

^^^^^^^ SUCKER !!!! ( Pot calling kettle black here !! )

As Apple Junkie said above, MM-111 rootstock is very good for heavier clay soils. ( This was told to me by the head of Penn State's fruit tree program ). My camp has clayish, loamy soil and he recommended MM-111 for us. It's done really well for us, I can tell you. MM-111 also is resistant to collar rot & wooly aphids.

 

[Telemark]

^^^^^^^ SUCKER !!!! ( Pot calling kettle black here !! )

As Apple Junkie said above, MM-111 rootstock is very good for heavier clay soils. ( This was told to me by the head of Penn State's fruit tree program ). My camp has clayish, loamy soil and he recommended MM-111 for us. It's done really well for us, I can tell you. MM-111 also is resistant to collar rot & wooly aphids.

I plan to try half mm111 and half bud118. Later I would like to do some crabs on ANT.

Just to be 100% clear, I can plant rootstocks this year and graft scions next year, right?

 

[chickenlittle]

You can graft later. You can tbud graft in mid summer or graft with dormant scion in the spring. The same goes for regrafting failed bench grafts. The only caution about planting out bench grafts or rootstock in their final location is that maintenance can be a pain. I found it easier to do a nursery and then transplant a good tree when ready.

 

[H20fwler]

Yes Telemark you can graft this spring or plant the rootstock or heal into a garden or planting box then cut it back next year and graft to it or the year after.

 

[Telemark]

I thought about planting them near my house, but I risk other people messing with them, and logistically, moving trees is harder than moving a few scion sticks to the location.

There is a beautiful apple tree in my neighbor's yard I will take a few scions from and graft this year to test my skills. I would love to grow cuttings from it, but people say that is pointless. Hopefully I can grow seedlings from it next year. Just need someone there to gather apples for me.

 

[yoderjac]

I plan to try half mm111 and half bud118. Later I would like to do some crabs on ANT.

Just to be 100% clear, I can plant rootstocks this year and graft scions next year, right?

We have heavy clay in my area. The local orchards use m111 so that is what I decided to go with for clonal rootstock. Of course, I sill love experimenting with seedlings!

 

[Telemark]

Here's a shot of my neighbor's tree and the apples it produces. It gets absolutely no maintenance, but produces amazing apples.

 

[Davewp]

came across this information on apples. If personal consumption is a factor in wanting to enjoy a few for yourself, check this info out...
http://www.pickyourown.org/apples.htm

 

[crackshot]

I have some apple trees on my
Place now. There's actually an old
Crab apple orchard on my property now with a few mature apple tree. There's also a lot of apples spread across the neighbors properties. I'd like to find pear varieties that produce a fair amount of mast over a period of time. Chesnut and persimmons varieties were also something appealing to me as there's none known existing in my area.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

^^^^^ Variety is always good. Diversity covers a lot of bases.

 

[bigeight]

My camp is at the border of zones 5 & 6 in N.C. Pa. We've had really good success with Liberty, Enterprise, Goldrush, Wolf River, N.Y. 35 "Bonkers" ( to name a few stalwarts of regular apples ). For crabs, our best ones so far are All-Winter-Hangover, Winter Wildlife, Trailman, Dolgo, Kerr & Chestnut - all from SLN. We have lots more varieties of apples and crabs, but these have done well enough that I feel comfortable recommending them.

As for nuts, white, red and chestnut oaks are great for wildlife, but if you're planting new trees - you won't see nuts for 20 to 30 years. Pin oaks will make nuts sooner, but you're still looking at 15 years if you buy 1 B&B tree. I planted a B&B pin oak in my yard 31 years ago, and watched it's progress. We are planting several Chinese chestnuts this spring based on reports of nuts in 6 to 10 years. We hope they come through in 6 years or so. Chinese chestnuts are blight resistant, and are the same chestnuts you buy at the grocery store before the holidays.

Some of the guys on here plant hazlenuts for wildlife. They make smaller nuts sooner - from reports and articles written. We have none of those mainly because bears would destroy them. If we didn't have so many bears, I'd plant hazlenuts in a heartbeat. Good for turkeys and grouse.

What nursery is SLN?

 

[Diesel5610]

Saint Lawrence Nursery in Upstate NY. They have most of their apple still available, most of the crabs are sold out for this year.

https://stlawrencenurseries.com