Blue Hill Nursery

There are other wildlife nurseries out there but for now Blue Hill is blazing the trail to producing disease free trees that produce heavily and do not need spraying to keep them healthy. This year Blue Hill doubled his inventory of disease free trees and next year I’d expect to see BlueHill producing many times what he did this year.

Ryan the owner is very passionate about growing the best possible trees for deer; He spends countless hours in pursuit of the next breakthrough Apple or pear tree. If Ryan sticks with it he will not only expand the deer tree market but also will I believe make fruit tree growing as popular as planting food plots has become.

,And I agree with Woodduck, Sandbur would have an outstanding nursery if he wanted; he has the same passion as Ryan does to simply FEED deer. And he has been on the leading edge with his choice of rootstocks and trees to grow. As the song goes, Art was country before country was cool!
 
Thanks for the kind words, but I am only a duffer and don’t know as much as you think.
There are others on here and some friends who know far more than me and I have learned from them.

I am not starting a nursery as I am retired for about 14 months and there are fish to catch, deer to kill, and cider to make.


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If things work out and I live long enough, I am doing a red stemmed dolgo seedling rootstock trial with Ryan’s help. I have prepared room for about 40 of these red stemmed rootstocks. I wish I had room for 200 of these, but I am really out of room for many more apple trees.

I want to see what type of fruit they will grow and check on their disease resistance. CAR is a major problem here, and dolgo seedlings are all over the board on CAR resistance. I might even try adding a few of these to a flowering crab to see what kind of fruit they get in less years time.

It would be great to find a red fleshed dolgo of a larger size for cider that is disease free. Wishful thinking, but this is my form of gambling. These root stocks might all end up like a red splendor flowering crab for all I know. If so, these could be top worked or just left as is for partridge (grouse), cedar waxwings, and turkeys.

Ryan might have a few extra of these if the red stemmed dolgo trend continues.


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At least three of us are evaluating the Courthouse Crab, which might be a future crab to feed deer through the winter.
We are trying it in central and NW Minnesota for cold hardiness.

It is currently growing in town and near the Mississippi River where winter temps are probably warmer than in rural areas.
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I picked the wrong week to go on vacation. The interesting ones were gone when I got back. My question is - is anyone else doing what Blue Hill is doing, with all the wild trees being grafted and geared toward deer? Seems he really goes after those wild pears and crabs. I know NWC and St. Lawrence do to maybe a lesser extent. What else is out there?
https://www.nativnurseries.com/ has 2-3 foot Oak and Fruit seedlings geared toward deer. I have some of their "wild deer pear" but they have only been in the ground 2-3 years . Mine are in tree tubes and have really shot up this year , easily at 9-10 foot tall. At $5.89 per seedling can't hurt to try a few when we get shut out from places like Blue Hill, and NWC that sell out within in hours of going on sale
 
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I checked BH out as soon as this thread started saw a couple crabs I would like to try and at least four of the late pears....got back to the site eight hours later sold out!
I will try and be quicker next year. The late pears are on my wish list, for whatever reason pears grow way better for me here.
 
If things work out and I live long enough, I am doing a red stemmed dolgo seedling rootstock trial with Ryan’s help. I have prepared room for about 40 of these red stemmed rootstocks. I wish I had room for 200 of these, but I am really out of room for many more apple trees.

I want to see what type of fruit they will grow and check on their disease resistance. CAR is a major problem here, and dolgo seedlings are all over the board on CAR resistance. I might even try adding a few of these to a flowering crab to see what kind of fruit they get in less years time.

It would be great to find a red fleshed dolgo of a larger size for cider that is disease free. Wishful thinking, but this is my form of gambling. These root stocks might all end up like a red splendor flowering crab for all I know. If so, these could be top worked or just left as is for partridge (grouse), cedar waxwings, and turkeys.

Ryan might have a few extra of these if the red stemmed dolgo trend continues.
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Sounds like a great project Sandbur. CAR is very prevalent here as well, if you would like some test plants grown here, give me a shout. We have space in view of our barn set aside for growing trees that we would want to be able to check frequently.
 
Curious, anyone purchase just the wild crabs or wild apples from BH? I seem to be able to find numerous folks on all his other stock but those two haven't found any true experience thoughts? Seem like perfect long term candidates to plant in bedding edges or transition areas, cage and then just forget them for years till production starts.
 
I am going to get in on some orders from them next year to add to my orchard. I have just shy of 28 fruit tree already from the wildlife group.
 
I have a few trees ordered from Ryan, and 2 varieties are from Sandbur's scions. They'll get planted in a corner field that's too stony for easy food plotting, but will make a great bow hunting spot. Lots of mature oaks & pines for tree stands! Ryan's doing quite a job at his place.
 
These are the Persimmon roots from BH, yes I pre-dug the holes before I opened the box and sealed it back up and re-dug the holes because I wasn’t expecting that much root mass.
I got 5 Persimmon and 6 Pears in the ground from Blue Hill last Friday, the Pears were roughly half the root mass of the Persimmon.
Expecting 10” of snow here tomorrow, glad I didn’t wait to plant lol

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That's a lot of root! Wow!

you had any success with persimmons this far north? Or is this the first go round?
My hunting partner has some nice sized persimmons as far as the tree goes, but he's never had it fruit yet.
 
you had any success with persimmons this far north? Or is this the first go round?
I planted 10 Persimmon the first year I owned the property next door (this will be their 5th summer), I am down to 6 now and the buds are swelling on those now. I lost 2 the year before last when we got a really hard early frost in late September and the other 2 didn't leaf out in the spring for whatever reason. I don't remember the source of those Persimmon off the top of my head, I think Pike's Peak Nursery in Pa and I don't believe they were grafted, these were my first BH trees.
 
What zone is the coldest any of you guys are getting persimmons to grow in?
 
These are the Persimmon roots from BH, yes I pre-dug the holes before I opened the box and sealed it back up and re-dug the holes because I wasn’t expecting that much root mass.
I got 5 Persimmon and 6 Pears in the ground from Blue Hill last Friday, the Pears were roughly half the root mass of the Persimmon.
Expecting 10” of snow here tomorrow, glad I didn’t wait to plant lol

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What was the size of the persimmon that you had ordered?

I ordered 20 of the 1-2' footers because that is all that was left.
 
What was the size of the persimmon that you had ordered?

I ordered 20 of the 1-2' footers because that is all that was left.
I got the 4-6' trees, they were all around 5 feet tall. I have tried to order several times in the past and had trees disappear from my cart at checkout so I never got an order in. I emailed Ryan and he made my (and others with a similar problem) order before sales went public so it wouldn't happen again.
 
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