Post-Season Apples

J B

5 year old buck +
Hello, I have a bunch of apples planted for the hunting season. Some are producing well and others need a few years yet. We had a pretty tough winter in SW WI this year (polar vortex and deep snow by our standards for a few weeks). The wildlife looked pretty thin a couple weeks ago. Luckily, things are thawing nicely now. It would be nice to have some insurance fruit hanging after all of the hunting seasons close. Does anyone have any good apples that deer are utilizing in Jan-Mar? Thanks!
 
Take a drive around late winter and look for tracks in the snow leading to those late hangers, talk with the local rural bus drivers - ones that are hunters - I have a mess of wild grafted trees in my nursery that I collected last year and the year prior just for the aforementioned reason... late winter food sources. Time will tell but Im hoping I collected some winners.
 
I have about three or four that seem to work. Golden Hornet, Kerr if you can get it to a big enough tree, and two I have named Big Dog and Buckman crab.

Pictures are buried in the Crabapple Timeline thread.

I have had deer feeding on dropped crabs in late April after a freak storm.

We also have a couple others we are evaluating at here at the junction of USDA zone 3 and 4.


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Goldrush is is still holding where I am in zone 5b. I don't think it will survive any colder zones.
 
Crabs for me so far here...Golden Hornet/DropTine/30-06 and one smaller fruit cab I grafted I named Briar Lane hang late into winter.
 
I wish I could have late hanging fruit, but the bear wont allow it. They will destroy any tree with fruit on it, so after deer hunting, I go around and shake, and knock off as many apples as I can.
 
Crabs for me so far here...Golden Hornet/DropTine/30-06 and one smaller fruit cab I grafted I named Briar Lane hang late into winter.
Did you see Terry has a new website? He said he's looked at thousands of wild crabs in his career and he's still pushing the same few. Good confidence.
 
Did you see Terry has a new website? He said he's looked at thousands of wild crabs in his career and he's still pushing the same few. Good confidence.

I will check that right now, the NWC have been some of my best trees.
 
Had a discussion along these lines with Yarg earlier this week. It's a different game down here almost into The South (I'm just north of the KY/TN line).
Centennial, Kerr, Almata, Bastian Orange, Geneva, Giant Russian... all those cultivated crabs are ripe and GONE before the end of August.
Ark Black and GoldRush would go well into fall - if the dadgum European Hornets didn't totally devour every fruit that ripens later than August.
I have a couple of Southern native crabs (M.angustifolia) that would have edible(to deer) fruit lying on the ground... if they'd not already cleaned them up. Callaway would probably have some shriveled fruits still hanging above reach.
Have one pear I found in east-central AL (near Lake Martin) that will normally have a heavy crop still hanging on Jan 1... have seen it with a bunch of fruit still hanging March 1.
But... late freezes in 2020 eliminated ALL apples/pears, most acorns/pecans, and severely diminished persimmon crops here.
 
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