Deer Won't Eat The Apples!

[MoLandOwner]

Have talked with many customers this past couple years about apple trees. They have been saying the deer do not seem to eat the apples until late winter or early spring. Not much activity during the season.

Why is that do you think?

 

[MoLandOwner]

Are they in farm country? Plenty of standing corn and beans around? IME, apples are a "dessert" item for deer rather than a main course. I've never seen a deer gorge themselves on apples for an hour, rather they grab one - couple and then head on their way elsewhere.

Yes all around here.

I was wondering if apples all taste the same to deer, or do some varieties in our area have a preferred taste to the deer?

 

[j-bird]

I think there could be several possibilities. I know the production orchard behind my folks place the deer seemed to like the apples off the ground more so than off the tree I think it has something to do with the sugar levels in them as they break down. I also agree that the deer more than likely won't eat apple after apple. This does pose an interesting question however, considering as many of us the plant apples for the deer. Farm country deer are some picky critters from what I have seen. Lots of choices out there for them.

 

[MoLandOwner]

The reason I asked the question if they prefer certain apples over others is I think I have witnessed it in different white oak trees. I have a certain White oak on one farm that the deer are always under snooping around for those acorns. They walk right past others to get to that tree, probably sounds strange but it has happened on many sits.

 

[MoLandOwner]

That tree probably produces acorns with lower tannin levels than the others...makes perfect sense.

Interesting!

 

[Jordan Selsor]

My big woods bucks love them. I throw old soft apples out around my cams and have gotten several pics of deer with an apple in their mouth..

 

[SD51555]

I've come to the conclusion that deer feeding behavior is never the same (except for maybe soybeans and dogwood). In our group we've debated why one spot had tons of sign one year, a little the next, and then none. Outside the countless variables like harvest and predation, I argued that the food source is constantly changing each day of the year and from year to year as the forest matures or is reset. What's in the field? How has the precip changed? The clear cut is declining in browse value. The raspberry crop was different. The field across the road got mowed. Some trees were cut, etc.

Every year is the same in that they're never the same. When I went and checked browse at the beginning of the spring of '14, every evergreen I found had some ends nipped off. It was bad. Never saw any of that coming out of this past winter.

 

[sandbur]

I see deer pass larger apples to go to crab apples. dolgo, chestnut, and a rootstock crab.

I felt the crab apples are just more bite sized. I'm sure taste is part of it.

 

[aerospacefarmer]

I have deer eating the branches of the Apple trees now and getting on hind legs and going after apples. They don't care what kind at this point I think if they are hungry they eat them if not they don't. My dear are eating all my sweet corn stalks even though it won't be ready for weeks. I am going to have a lot less corn come harvest time

 

[MoLandOwner]

If you wanted to mess around with growing oaks, it would be fun to plant acorns from that tree and see if those trees (in a decade +) produce highly favored acorns as well. It's also possible that you have a hybrid white oak of some sort. Pay close attention to the leaves, bark, and acorns of that tree and see if there are some differences between it and the other white oaks.

We have a lot of Burr Oaks and a lot of Shingle Oaks, but very few true white oaks. Maybe this white oak is some sort of Hybrid, or maybe the deer just prefer this over the other White and Burr Oaks right around it, Burr oaks are a white oak I think, they maybe don't taste as good? Don't know for sure.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

We have lots of white oaks at camp, but the one the deer flock to is at the end of one of our food plots. It gets fertilizer spread all around it when the plot is planted. Not that the deer won't eat other white oak acorns in the area, but they walk right past other trees and home in on that one. They could easily feed in thicker cover on other white oak acorns, but they hurry right out to that one. Better taste from fertilizer ?? I have no idea or way to prove it. Just going by circumstantial evidence.

 

[Catscratch]

I've read before that animals prefer to eat from a fertilized tree. I wonder if fertilized trees also deliver healthier mineral and nutritional benefits?

 

[Bowsnbucks]

I was wondering the same thing about better minerals, Cat.

Some of you guys were talking about deer eating a few apples - like a dessert - and then moving on to clover, alfalfa, etc. I see the same exact behavior here. They don't " fill up " on apples, but they sure do make a bee-line to them........... first !!!

 

[wiscwhip]

High mineral content in the soil will have a direct relationship to the feed quality of the plants growing in that plot. This can and has been proven many times through strictly controlled university forage trials and subsequent testing of the plant tissues. 2 ways to get minerals to your deer, a trace mineral block in a concentrated location, which is highly suspected of being a disease spreading practice in the CWD world or proper fertilization of your soil to build better nutrition through more nutritious forage throughout your whole farm.

 

[Catscratch]

I've often wondered if all the time and money I spend on food plots would be better utilized developing native vegetation. Of course I will never give up foot plots and trees as I love doing those things, but I'm now in a situation where I can control some native areas without the intrusion of cattle. Soil fertility is going to be my first line of attack.

 

[Jordan Selsor]

I see deer pass larger apples to go to crab apples. dolgo, chestnut, and a rootstock crab.

I felt the crab apples are just more bite sized. I'm sure taste is part of it.

This makes me think that Yates apple trees don't get the love they deserve from us deer managers. Disease resistant, late drop, lots of little delicious apples. Should be on everyone's list. Only weakness I could see is its described as a southern apple which may not work for many of you. I had a 5 grafted that all failed for multiple reasons:( but yates will be on the top of my list for next years grafting adventures.. From here on out I think Im gonna stick with dolgo, liberty, enterprise, AB, and yates

 

[SD51555]

I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to get my soil just right. We're doing pretty good on N/P/K now, but we're still having issues in the micros and magnesium. So I went down to my grocery store and got some borax for boron. I went to the health and beauty section at Walmart to get epsom salt for magnesium. I went to amazon to get copper sulfate. Since I bought a soil probe, I'm waiting until spring to put any on. I'm planning on getter more accurate samples with that probe. From what I've read, you can do a lot of harm if you get your Mg and Cu wrong. We need to get serious about organic matter though. Constant soybeans could burn us out pretty quick.

 

[chummer]

I have about 20 old apples on my place. Two of those trees are targeted by deer above the rest. One of them is in the middle of a field. Starting in July the deer will sprint out of the woods to that tree about an hour before dark. The other tree is secluded and the deer show up right after dark. Those two trees never have an apple under them even in a heavy apple year. The other trees the apples will pile up under. Eventually though they eat every last one. It was very interesting three years ago when we had a lot more deer and a bumber crop to see how the trees ranked. I watched a pair of does under the tree next to me eat golf ball sized apples for over an hour. I was shocked by how many the actually ate.

 

[deepsleep]

I think we tend to assume that what tastes good to us, tastes good to deer. I was reminded that this is not always the case a couple of years ago when I was baffled by the deer running past my well fertilized alfalfa and white clover to get to a patch of mammoth red I had planted for green manure. They hammered that red all summer, even with soybeans for miles. In the interest of science, I tasted all three forages. The alfalfa was delicious to me and I would have been happy to eat it on a salad. The white clover wasn't quite as good to me, but was still very palatable, and both it and the alfalfa were very tender, like baby greens. The mammoth red, on the other hand, was tough and almost too bitter for me to choke down. Yet, there were the deer, morning and night, chowing down on the red clover and ignoring the "good stuff" 10 feet away. This pattern changed around September, when they switched to alfalfa, and then a few weeks later, white clover. The point is, deer like what they like, regardless of what we think. All this being said, if I had trees like Chummer mentions above, I couldn't graft them fast enough, especially if they drop sometime after deer season starts. They may not be a gold mine, as soil/planting location can certainly have an effect, but I'm guessing the results would be very favorable.

 

[dipper]

I don't think a deer is smarter than a human, and we certainly don't pick and choose our food based on macro nutrients, or any nutrients for that matter. My dog will also steal a greasy hamburger off someone's plate, but look at a piece of broccoli.
It all comes down to taste
Growing up we always had to pick the apples that fell on the yard. We had 20 some trees of all different varieties. We'd throw hundreds of pounds a week out On my parents place, as a gardening practice, of course! There's no doubt they preferred some varieties over others.
I've got an old golden delicious orchard I hunt. It's probably an acre. When the trees are dropping, it seems like every doe in the area moves in. The does are aggressive and race to the apples. Mature bucks only use the plot at night. My guess is they don't like being close to all those other deer, early in the fall.
I've kinda selected my varieties based on this. I want my apples falling as close to the rut as possible. Apples draw deer like crazy in my area, almost too well. I've never had luck hunting mature bucks when the does are concentrated to one food source when the rut wasn't on.
Now I have hunted properties that have wild apples spread out everywhere. Mature bucks reakly seek the apples, but the behavior is unpredictable and widespread.
Now if there wasn't piles of does in an area, and you've got apple trees, is have a lot of confidence hunting mr big at the apples.