Apples,apples and more apples

[Chainsaw]

Planted 600 apple seeds December 18 2019 directly into the soil in an amended flower bed. Additionally on the next day planted 63 apple seeds in one gallon water jugs using Miracle Gro seed starting potting mix as the soil medium. Watered the seeds in and put the jugs outside in the snow bank as a test hoping for a high and even germination rate in early spring. And then yesterday on January 29, 2020 another 663 apple seeds were planted; ground was snow covered and unworkable so all 663 seeds were planted into water jugs, watered and put out in the snow bank. All of the planted 1326 apple seeds came from our Turning Point Apple tree. Turning Point is just a simple wild apple tree that we call by that name. It is special to the deer here and thus is special to us. The pollinator parents of the planted seeds though unknown were likely multiple wild apple trees growing near Turning Point. We shall find out which of the two seed planting methods (if any)works the best come around May 15.

Today’s apple tree related activity begins the wire cutting to make cages in preparation for our spring planting of bare rootstock apple trees that have been ordered for delivery here this spring. Thanks to the many examples of how to cage trees from everyone here, that learning curve can be jumped over. Cages are also being cut for some pear trees, lilac trees, forsythia bushes, and sumac seedlings. However this thread will be about apples, apples and more apples.


With there being very minor snow here this year the deer are active day and night now and old Turning point is getting lots of visitors. This group of young deer raced in, each trying to be first. The mother casually ambled in after; the old doe stands up on two legs to reach apples so there is no need for her to race to the tree. Trail cam pic. taken two days ago on January 28, 2020.



The apple projects started here around 1989; And nothing except for resetting the forest areas back to an earlier succession stage has come close to delivering benefits to the deer living here than the apple related projects have. The mission for this Apple project which is really in its infant stages is to establish 19 major apple tree thickets on this property each made up of various apple trees that combined provide a steady drop of apples from November 15 through March.

 

[scott44]

That's a major apple tree planting, how did the seeds from last year turn out?

Edit: I reread your dates and see it was Dec 2019 thought it was 2018.

 

[Chainsaw]

You are correct Scott, It is a major planting and will take multiple years to accomplish along with all of the other ongoing projects underway. However twenty trees here and twenty trees there will add up "quickly".

 

[Mortenson]

Yes that's quite a project. So 19 apple thickets with each being around 20 trees, can I ask roughly how big is the property? I currently have 2 fruit locations on our 200 acres, and am trying to decide if I should begin a 3rd one, or keep expanding the originals. For my layout, less locations is probably better, for hunting anyway. I realize for wildlife benefit, probably the more scattered they are, the better. Helps spread out some risk, too.

 

[woodduck]

It will be exciting to follow along on this thread.

 

[Chainsaw]

Good point Mortenson, I agree randomly scattered apple thickets would be not conducive to hunting. The total property is 605 acres. And with 19 major apple thickets it sounds scattered and 19 could be on the edge of too many but it is all planned out with the intent that each part complements all other parts to work together. And sometimes it does work well for us. Because we had more than 19 scattered apple thickets on the property it afforded us choices and flexibility to just use ones that were best located for our purposes. Those we didn't release are mostly still alive but produce very little fruit. The main purpose of the more apple thickets versus less is to hopefully hold more doe families and older bucks on the property for longer periods at the same time. While we can only shoot one rifle buck and one bow/muzzleloader buck we try to keep as many on the property as much as possible during daylight hours to get a few to older ages. The # of apple thicket locations themselves is the amount of apple thickets that are currently on the property that I have concentrated release efforts on over the years and they range in apple tree numbers mostly from twenty to seventy-five or more trees each with a couple being less than that range and a couple being significantly more.

I'm leaving the actual number of apple trees to be added to each thicket as "to be determined" as each thicket will vary in numbers of added apple trees depending upon the amount of good growing ground, which ones have the best access and will actually be hunted, which locations will place the deer away from neighboring property lines, which will help steer the bucks back into the property as they go from bar to bar so to speak and which will provide the deer with safe winter access to the apples while providing them quick and safe access back into heavy cover.

The thinking is not to put apple trees in the food plots but to put food plots into the apple trees, some hunted, some not. Apple tree thickets bordering heavy cover, drainages and food plot ground where affording us great access while affording the deer safe winter access will be planted first. This trail cam pic of a promising young buck(for here) shows a typical food plot growing "inside" an apple tree thicket.


The food plot part is just bow shot wide or less in many spots and the apple thickets surround it on three sides. The apple thickets are bordered by extremely heavy cover. A drainage runs through the apple tree thicket across the food plot and thru the apple tree thicket on the other side of the planted food plot section into the extremely heavy cover.

The drainage then meanders along and leads to an intersection of a second drainage where the next apple thicket which also has a food plot associated with it is located. Cross the drainage and thru more apples to another very narrow food plot planting which is also currently harbors an apple tree thicket running along side of it for a about two hundred yards to where it eventually turns and again enters heavy cover. A deer trail then branches off and leads through that heavy cover maybe a third of a mile to the next apple thicket/food plot complex while the main trail branch continues on to a different apple tree thicket and on and on it goes.

Back to wire cutting for now.

 

[Jhoss]

If you can take buckets of animal bedding...rabbit...chicken, etc. out to the planting spots and dump a bucket where you are going to plant...this "sweetens" up and "de-weeds" the planting spots nicely.

 

[chickenlittle]

Something I've considered but never done is to make a stoolbed for browse. Planted a large number of apple seedlings at high density in rows somewhere near a convenient stand. Fence for a couple years for them to get established. After that, remove the fence every August or September and let them have at it. Mow everything off in March, fertilize, and fence again until August. I'll try that when I buy a place.

Another idea from the USDA at Geneva. A photo I took of the Kazakhstan/Gala seedlings planted in a double row at tight spacing.

 

[roymunson]

chicken little, that is an obscene amount of apples.

 

[Chainsaw]

If you can take buckets of animal bedding...rabbit...chicken, etc. out to the planting spots and dump a bucket where you are going to plant...this "sweetens" up and "de-weeds" the planting spots nicely.

Thank you for that suggestion Jhoss. I am interested in better understanding the specifics of your Using animal bedding in association with growing apple trees. I have no experience in using it for trees. Could you provide details of your methods? For example how fresh or composted is the bedding? Do you actually mix it in the soil before you plant or does it just go on top? And are you using exactly one whole per planting? And do you continue to add it annually or just the one time? Do you have sandy soil or clay or a good mix? Sorry for so many questions but knowing all of the details would help me understand it better.
Thanks.

 

[Chainsaw]

Thank you for posting that picture Chicken Little. There have on occasion been so many apples falling at once here that walking through them would crush multiple apples with each step. Walking thru and thus on the apples the first time ever, the apple smell was beyond any intensity I had ever experienced. However your picture beats that hands down and is really fun to see.

I had in mind to create plantings with very tight spacing, multiple trunks and multiple central leaders as is seen in naturally grown wild apple thickets versus in well spaced trees as in orchard style. The upside was to be a near full canopy to help control excessive weeds and the downside would be less apples per tree of course. Your picture of double row tight spacing shows something in between which I had not seen before; the result providing both a closed canopy and apple production looks near perfect. It is certainly an alternative Planting scheme to consider. Do you recall the compass direction that line of trees was running? And is a trip to Geneva to see their setups something you’d recommend for us Apple fans? It was expected there would be synergistic learning opportunities with this thread but didn’t expect an eye opener so quickly; thank you.

Best of luck to you in buying a place when you are ready. It is a wonderful thing to have your own place.

 

[chickenlittle]

Keep in mind their facility is fenced. If deer had access, i think you could walk through those rows because everything would be browsed off to 6-7ft high. These rows are oriented N-S. There were 5 long double rows. I'll post the satellite photo later.

I'd recommend going in September when the USDA Geneva site has their open house. They gave an overview of the apple and grape collection. Walked through the orchard showing different areas. Take a bite of any apple you want. Then you could walk around on your own. If you have a list of trees with locations, they are easy to find.

 

[westonwhitetail]

Chainsaw, what do you mean by “apple thickets”?

My cousin owns a portion of an old abandoned orchard. The apple trees are mature and don’t produce like they used to without maintenance but the rows between the trees have grown into a mess of raspberries, shrubs and bushes and it’s become a haven for deer bedding. Sometimes I think deer go in and don’t need to leave when the pressure is on cause they have the thickest cover around and can find good browse and a few apples.

Is that what you try to produce in your “apple thickets” or are they more of a typical orchard setting with clover or grasses? Or do you plant a tighter spacing than a typical orchard like mentioned above?


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[Chainsaw]

Westonwhitetail you are right on about the deer actually bedding in some of the apple tree thickets and not needing to move to feed. Overall it works in our favor though just the same. Each of the apple tree thickets are different but look back a few pics to post# 6. Pictured on that post is an apple tree thicket of close to 100 apple trees maybe more. Most of the trees on either side of the planted food plot are apples. The almost solid Apple area tree wise there covers roughly four acres. As you said the trees are old (mostly about 56 years old here) and each trees' crop varies each year from very heavy to just a few. However times 100 or more trees, it makes for a lot of apples. Food plots there are mostly about 15 yards wide at the most and if put on the same line they would be four to five hundred yards long. The deer move about very freely there during daylight hours. The planted food plot areas in this thicket area are weak, simply planted in clover but the deer feel very comfortable hanging out there. That entire thicket is not from an old orchard but rather consists of wild apple trees naturally born and grown in place there. Competing non-apple trees have been reduced there over the years one by one with a chainsaw. It does take maintenance to keep it going but not as much as one would think although a few are a bit rough just the same. This is another pic of the same apple tree thicket pictured in post 6. Most of those large ugly trees are great apple producers. This young deer is walking along one of the clover food plots that runs between thickets. So as you can see there is no clover or anything planted in the thickets just either alongside them or in cleared plots that go thru them. Every thicket and plot is different.



All of the apple tree thickets growing on the property were growing there on their own when I purchased the property. The property was purchased in parcels from 1989 to about 2000. The property initially had somewhere over 3,000 wild apple trees on it then (#guesstimated). Over the years we released just over 2,000 of those apple trees(actually recorded as released and counted). There is also one planted orchard area of about twenty trees and another 6 or so here and there that we also planted. Some years there are an abundance of wild apples thru Thanksgiving but regularly less than a dozen trees are still holding good from November 15th on. And yes all of this cover with food does make hunting interesting. However and BUT all of this extra cover is where most of the areas deer spend their daylight time and most of their night time as well according to neighbor reports and number of shots heard in the area. Thus the food and cover keeps them alive. If this property were as open as the surrounding properties there would be very few bucks here over 1 1/2. Most would be dead before they even reached 2 1/2 let alone 4 1/2. Even as young deer many of them seem to prefer hanging out in this thicker cover than the very open and browsed out surrounding neighboring properties.

I have not finished detailed analyzing 2019 trail cam pics so this statistic comes from 2018. Of the 42,000 and change trail cam pics from the fall of 2018, 71% of all deer pics were daytime pics. Our targeted bucks though had a 78% rate of daytime pics. So yes the unruly thick apple tree thickets give deer all the food and cover they want so they don't need to move but it is the main cause for getting them to 3 1/2, and even 4 1/2 and sometimes 5 1/2. And per the camera pictures most of their movement occurs during daylight hours. As in all things every minus comes with pluses and every plus comes with minuses. The important thing is the chosen habitat meets our goals.

Most of the new trees to be added will be added along side the current apple tree thicket areas. It is where the deer like to be anyways so providing them with more food there via late dropping apples during the later parts of the fall and thru the winter will have more pluses than minuses. WE are usually done hunting by mid November so the major thrust is to keep the deer alive and healthy to help get them thru the year to the next age bracket.

Hope you fully get what I'm going for and sorry for the long explanation.

 

[sandbur]

Here is an attempt at an apple thicket from years ago. This is light soil and growth has been slow. Most are seedlings and I top worked a few.


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[Chainsaw]

Sandbur, thank you for sharing your apple tree thicket project picture. While it sounds like it is not everything that you might have hoped for, the picture shows it is definitely a daily winter deer destination that provides winter feed where before there was none. It is a giant step forward habitat wise and an important result. Making your property meet more of the deers' winter needs is what many of us would like to achieve. Hopefully we can get some takeaways from your pioneering effort here and duplicate what you did and maybe come out even better from applying the benefit of your experience. By the soil being light do you mean sandy? With your current perspective would you have used that same location for your apple thicket? And if not why not and if so what might you have done differently if anything? And did you keep it mowed inside the ex-closure fence or is there another reason for the lack of underbrush growth there? Again thank you for sharing this with us; your learnings on creating apple tree thickets can fast forward the starting point for my project and everyone else here that might have an inclination to create apple tree thickets.

 

[sandbur]

Sandbur, thank you for sharing your apple tree thicket project picture. While it sounds like it is not everything that you might have hoped for, the picture shows it is definitely a daily winter deer destination that provides winter feed where before there was none. It is a giant step forward habitat wise and an important result. Making your property meet more of the deers' winter needs is what many of us would like to achieve. Hopefully we can get some takeaways from your pioneering effort here and duplicate what you did and maybe come out even better from applying the benefit of your experience. By the soil being light do you mean sandy? With your current perspective would you have used that same location for your apple thicket? And if not why not and if so what might you have done differently if anything? And did you keep it mowed inside the ex-closure fence or is there another reason for the lack of underbrush growth there? Again thank you for sharing this with us; your learnings on creating apple tree thickets can fast forward the starting point for my project and everyone else here that might have an inclination to create apple tree thickets.

I have two exclosures this size and two smaller. Comments.

This is an area of sandy soils with a high water table at times of the year. I suspect lime and fruit tree spikes or dairy pit manure would have helped.

I kept my better soils for single tree plantings where they would get maintenance and produce more fruit.

one smaller exclosure has done better and we had a load of dairy pot manure get stuck in the foodplot adjacent to it. Perhaps this is why this area produced better.

I used seeds from wild crabs for these projects. The fastest growers were planted as single tree plantings. I planted all of the slow growers/ slow mergers in the group exclosure except a few better growers in the front ends.

I have suggested throwing out the half of your seedlings that are slow growers. (One experienced person who grows apples from seed says this is a mistake as slow emergence or growth is linked to later in spring blooming with less chance of frost killing blossoms.) still, in a competitive growing situation, slow growers may not do well anyway.

In one of the larger exclosures, I planted seedling crabs around the outside edge and farmstead plums in the center. I should have used wild plums in the center as the sucker more and create a thicker thicket. My thoughts are that crabs on the outside edge would get more sun on all sides with plums in the middle, thus more fruit.


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[sandbur]

I did not mow inside of these areas but used roundup around a few of them.
All seedlings were protected with these contraptions.

. If you use steel electric fence posts, keep this end up so they are easier to remove.

Perimeter fence was a 150 foot roll of cement reinforcing wire with a gate. I have only had one deer get in there in years.


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[sandbur]

If I did this again, wild plums would go in the middle and crab seedlings or dolgo seedlings/ rootstock would go around the outside.


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[sandbur]

May 13, 2017 picture of exclosure.

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