All Things Habitat - Lets talk.....
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Kerr
- Thread starter CrazyEd
- Start date
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Yes they are tasty. The hang a long time too.
Apple Junkie
5 year old buck +
That's a nice looking tree Ed. Healthy.
buckvelvet
5 year old buck +
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Great looking tree, Matt. We had a few Kerr fruit last fall and they're really tasty. X-2 on hanging for a while too.
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
Here was the same tree holding 11/21/2015 - I think this was opening day of gun-deer season. I would say this is a pretty good late season apple.
This time on 2/22/2016.
Being new to growing apples for wildlife, with the fence around these trees, and deer not able to get to the apples, nor get to any of the apples that fall on the ground, how are the apples a benefit to deer? My trees have about the same size fences around them, but I was just thinking how are deer suppose to be able to get to the apples?
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
This tree is growing on B.118 rootstock and should get huge (20' tall - 15-20' wide?). Once it gets big enough there will be plenty of fruit falling well outside of the cage. If I didn't cage the tree it would be totally destroyed from bucks rubbing it or deer in general browsing it. there are other critters eating apples that can get inside the concrete mesh because I do find chewed up apples inside. Whenever i see apples inside the cage on the ground i will throw them out so the deer can get them.
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
Thanks Ed, that was what I figured. My trees are also on B118s. I was thinking with a couple of the bigger trees I have, I could make the fence diameter smaller, just to protect the trunks, and then the apples would fall outside of the fence as well.
CrazyEd
5 year old buck +
Yeah, I have thought about making smaller diameter cages, but that seems like too much effort. We plan to use these full sized cages long term for now as we buy the concrete mesh when it's onsale for $75 a roll and can make at least 10 cages per roll it seems cost effective and helps keep the deer off the trees. We'll see though once my trees start getting bigger if I change my tune. Obviously the goal is to get as many apples in the mouths of hungry wildlife and the current cage size does limit that a little right now.
Once my trees grew fairly large I took off similar cages and put 4' tall cages around only the trunk. That let the deer get all the apples, but the Bears really tore them up after that. If you have bears,I would leave the bigger cages on for a long time. I have had no problems by my house though where there are no bears though
4wanderingeyes
5 year old buck +
I have many bears. So, leaving the fences up it is!
I took the big cages down in northern wi this spring and will be putting them back up this fall. The Bears seemed to like the newly exposed branches far before they even grew fruit.
Going forward I think a good long term plan is to use 10 feet of 5' tall cage per tree and leave it up for a really long time
The trunk guards around only the trunk work fine by my house in mm where I don't have to worry about bears.
Going forward I think a good long term plan is to use 10 feet of 5' tall cage per tree and leave it up for a really long time
The trunk guards around only the trunk work fine by my house in mm where I don't have to worry about bears.
Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Keeping deer off the trees is easy with the cages. Bears are a whole other matter. My camp is in the heart of bear country and they're a real pain sometimes. The goal is to grow the trees big enough ( if you can get them through the early, vulnerable years ) so if a bear pulls down a limb or climbs a tree, it will survive and thrive. That's the trick if you can pull it off !!
