Apple for browse?

[Catscratch]

Anyone purposely plant apple/crab/pear for browse? Everything I've read says you have to properly protect fruit trees to get them big enough to produce... deer must love them. Are they nutritious? Any varieties that could survive and produce browse?
I like mulberries for browse trees. Kind of the same thinking.

 

[buckvelvet]

Deer be damned i'd never do the work i do for a tree to let it get demolished before its time.

 

[Catscratch]

Lol. What if you just planted them with no intention of them producing fruit? No protection except to protect the trunk from girdling and rubs. Would they survive the browsing and provide quality nutrition?

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[buckvelvet]

If you had some cheap like sweet crab or some other conservation district crab that didnt necessarily matter to you, ya certainly could. Im to apple obsessive to consider doing it though.

However going with your thought i see no reason why it wouldnt work but it would never make a tree size with high dpsm areas.


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[chickenlittle]

Essentially you want a stool bed like for propagating rootstock. Cut it off every spring at the ground and let new growth come up. Any seedlings would work. Protect for a year or two then let them have it. Question would be where to put it for best usage. Might need to protect temporarily each spring and summer.

 

[wklman]

Here's a year 6 crab apple from mn dnr Nursery in a moderate density area. It's 3 ft tall and hasn't gotten higher then that since planted. I've got 40 more that are the same way. Deer won't leave it alone.

 

[Freeborn]

I have an approach I'm going to try but it will take several years before I will see if it provides the results I want. As part of my CRP planting 5 years ago I had about 500 crabapple seedlings planted. All of them were tubed. Many of these trees are now 10+ feet tall and producing fruit. My plan is to cut the tree off while its dormant at 3', try and disturb the roots using either a stake or auger and then protect the tree with concrete mesh. My goal is to stimulate suckering by disturbing the roots as well as cutting the top of the tree off. I plan on targeting trees that are producing smaller fruit and would like to see the concrete mesh full of stems before I removed the mesh. The purpose is to provide browse for the deer as well as fruit for the deer and pheasants. If I could get a number of these developed I could thin thick branches out of them just like Lilacs and if they get over browsed I could protect them with the mesh. I figure it will take some time but I have plenty of trees and it should not be time consuming to try.

 

[Catscratch]

So I'm not crazy (for thinking about trying this anyway).
wklman has proof of concept.
Freeborn has a similar plan.
NH Mountains says there is cheaper (I purposely stump sprout hedge and mulberry which is free).

Anyone know the nutritional value of apple browse?
Is it preferred enough to act as a late season draw if you could fence them off until December? Preferred enough to hunt over a cluster of them?

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[Powder]

So help me understand. I get that because you know they will browse on apple trees you would like to have a lot apple trees/bushes so they can browse it. But, wouldn't letting the tree grow and produce apples actually provide more food for the deer? I don't see how this has many advantages other than an extended period of time they could eat. But the significant decrease in tonnage would be a huge downfall in my opinion.

 

[chickenlittle]

Preferred enough to hunt over a cluster of them?

I don't know that it would be a great draw but could work in the right spot. Maybe as a place near bedding to grab a few bites on the move. I think it would be tricky to set up. I have found the idea interesting for a while. I have tried to use strawberry bush as the draw but they have not grown well for me.

 

[Buckly]

Here's what I know for what it's worth. I have over 150 wild apple trees on my property. Some are ancient old and some are just seedlings and I can assure you that these trees grew up with the deer in a 60-70 or more deer per square mile area and has been for the 50 years I know of. The deer will browse on those apple limbs all year no matter the season but, they just can't destroy them nor find them all. They grow too fast. We just had 3 feet of snow and on my recent walk, every sing apple tree that I looked at had tracks upon tracks under them. The snow lets them get a bit higher on the tree. Once you get fully mature trees they just keep producing lower limbs and it's a feast every year for the deer. It doesn't hurt the trees so you get a twofer. Lots of apples and lots of browse. I think you've got a great idea there and that's what I have already. It just came by nature for me. I would plant seedlings everywhere and just use natural protection like brush and briers. Just make sure they get sun. They will get a lot but, having mature trees in the long run provides year round endless food in my opinion.

 

[wklman]

I'd say you'd need quite a few to start with. Like around 3-400. I planted 2 regular apple trees out on a field edge without protection as an experiment and the deer killed them. They literally ate them down to the stock and that was what was left in the fall. They never came back the next spring. The ideal way to do crabs the way you want it would be to protect them for at least 3 years or so then let the deer have at it. I wouldn't prune them or anything. let them grow wild then remove whatever enclosure you have around them and walk away.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I have an example of just what you're looking to do. But mine was by accident / nature. It involves 2 small-fruit crabs that I got from the Pa. Game Commission seedling sale about 20 years ago. I caged them with concrete mesh when I planted them, but the cages rusted away over the years.

The crabs got their lower limbs browsed hard, and root suckers sprang up as well as water sprouts and new growth on the multiple trunks. Those trees are now about 18 ft. tall - the suckers and new, low growth get hammered every year. But the trees are healthy and produce 5/8" dia. fruit each year. Browse and fruit on same trees - no cages anymore. But it took some years to get them above total destruction by deer.

Purely an accident - no planning on my part. But it sounds like what you want to accomplish.

 

[chummer]

I am trying this with Midwest crabs from cold stream. They are a shrub forming crab apple. I will have them caged for a few years because they border my food plots and see a lot of traffic. Once they take thier shrub form I will remove the cages and the will be "browse trees". My hope is after they are 5+ years old they will handle the browse.

 

[Catscratch]

So help me understand. I get that because you know they will browse on apple trees you would like to have a lot apple trees/bushes so they can browse it. But, wouldn't letting the tree grow and produce apples actually provide more food for the deer? I don't see how this has many advantages other than an extended period of time they could eat. But the significant decrease in tonnage would be a huge downfall in my opinion.

I'm not convinced I need to do this experiment yet, but here is the logic behind my thinking:
Browse can be high in protein and comprises 30% to 50% of a deer's diet (depending on the season). I'm having trouble finding info but I've read that (depending on the tree) that protein content can be around 20%. This is a year round need for the deer and a major part of their diet. Having to protect fruit trees so much hints to me that they are vastly preferred for browse.

If I can provide a nutritious (and preferred) food source that is available throughout the yr then I'm all for it. I've been doing this with other trees for yrs.

I'm also planting and protecting other fruit trees that I want solely for mast production.

 

[Catscratch]

If maples will grow there plant maples and hinge them every 4-5 years. You'll get much more regrowth and browse per tree than any apple. Cage your apples and you'll get much more food from them in the long run then as a browse tree.

I don't have any maples but I'm working on gathering seeds. Wife thinks I'm crazy; every time we go somewhere I grab a hand full of seeds and shove them in my pocket.
Any idea of the protein content or preference of maple?

 

[Catscratch]

I might be wrong but, I don't think Cat wants to wait 50 years to see if his plan will work. I live where there may be 10 dpsm on a good month and the deer find and browse every unprotected apple. I have acres of good maple, birch, poplar, and blackberries for browse but, they eventually find the unprotected apples. Young apples don't respond to browse pressure like a maple does. After getting hammered mine go into a dormant stage. Very little regrowth until the next season. Maples regent browse every few weeks.

Certainly don't want to wait long. Knowing that they don't handle browse well is important. Thanks.

 

[Catscratch]

Thanks everyone else for sharing your stories or experiences with this! More stories of this than I thought there would be and this will help with the formation of my ideas/plans.

 

[MoBuckChaser]

Apples and crabs that are repeatedly browsed start to produce lots of thorny spurs and small leaves. The amount of green forage they can provide shrinks each time they're browsed.

Any apple trees take browsing better than others?

 

[Chainsaw]

The number one individual tree source of browse on this property are wild apple trees. They are hands down the #1 preferred browse tree living on this property today. The deer browse the branches within reach down to finger size and when main branches break the deer find them quickly. The heavy snow often bends the tops down to deer reach during the worst parts of winter.

I allowed complete access of my planted trees after they were about twelve years old(guess on age). They are tall enough that enough branches are surviving and producing fruit.