Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Paleo - Those tree pix are great. I can see why the critters hang around. Loaded !!
I am far from an expert on apples, just a bumbling idiot. In my case, any crab about one inch or bigger and that drops on it’s own is fine for deer. I even feel deer prefer apples less than 2 inches.
Dolgo seedlings are cheap and seem to provide a nice variety of bird sized flowering crabs to larger deer crabs. Might be a good place to start, then add a few select other crab apples.
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I think if your trying to grow a fruit tree of any type for 'instant gratification' your barking up the wrong tree so to speak. The apple trees that I have grafted are a love affair for me, I don't care how long they take in terms of years to produce. My enjoyment is taking in the journey to get there and trying new varieties I've never experienced, which will be the majority of them.
There are plenty of other things you can do for the instant reward for habitat/hunting endeavors, fruit trees isn't one of them.
We have ordered and fruited trees on second leaf in the ground , Bud 9 , g41, full dwarf rootstock max height about 8 ft needs full support thru life , usually remove most developing fruit first year let them fruit lightly 2nd year to encourage some structure growth would like 6 plus feet before full fruiting , full dwarf trees will probably not last more than 20 years but neither will I,, these days if im going to see fruit it has to come fast or its for my son just a fact not enough years left
Re: YJ's post in #49 re: 111 and/or full-size …..I'm not so sure.
7's will get you a tree that near 20'....some under, some over. On my ground that seems to be enough. And 7's are faster than 111's or 118's. They say 106's and `126's can work too. I haven't tried them. My Geneva's are too young for me to judge yet. To be sure, I prune all trees so that the lowest branch is 6' minimum. They can reach higher than that (see the nearby pics of the deer rearing up for pears)…..but my 7's are working for me without excessive damage.
Now, if you regularly have a snow pack that is 3+ feet, well then, standards and near standard may be a better option.
And if you have bears.....can anything work for you?
Our bud9 are where deer cannot contact them , Our deer population is high enough it would never work without exclusion , We produce for sales every year we pick and store more apples than we can sell , then process for baked goods for the next fall , press and freeze cider till we cant hold any more about end of Dec we usually have 60 to 80 bushels too many we pour those out on the ground outside our fence after all seasons are over . The deer move in on em and almost live there till consumed have placed a camera on the pile and will get 30 to 40 photos per day , first they eat the apples we get to mid jan apples are gone the dig and eat any mush left over by mid feb they move on to another food sourceI'm using Bud 9 to get early fruit for evaluation of seedlings, but I would not consider it for wildlife. I either use seedling rootstock for full sized trees, plant seedlings and don't graft them for full sized trees, or use M111 for a semi-dwarf. I would find anything smaller too problematic for wildlife.
Thanks,
Jack
Our bud9 are where deer cannot contact them , Our deer population is high enough it would never work without exclusion , We produce for sales every year we pick and store more apples than we can sell , then process for baked goods for the next fall , press and freeze cider till we cant hold any more about end of Dec we usually have 60 to 80 bushels too many we pour those out on the ground outside our fence after all seasons are over . The deer move in on em and almost live there till consumed have placed a camera on the pile and will get 30 to 40 photos per day , first they eat the apples we get to mid jan apples are gone the dig and eat any mush left over by mid feb they move on to another food source
Our bud9 are where deer cannot contact them , Our deer population is high enough it would never work without exclusion , We produce for sales every year we pick and store more apples than we can sell , then process for baked goods for the next fall , press and freeze cider till we cant hold any more about end of Dec we usually have 60 to 80 bushels too many we pour those out on the ground outside our fence after all seasons are over . The deer move in on em and almost live there till consumed have placed a camera on the pile and will get 30 to 40 photos per day , first they eat the apples we get to mid jan apples are gone the dig and eat any mush left over by mid feb they move on to another food sourceI'm using Bud 9 to get early fruit for evaluation of seedlings, but I would not consider it for wildlife. I either use seedling rootstock for full sized trees, plant seedlings and don't graft them for full sized trees, or use M111 for a semi-dwarf. I would find anything smaller too problematic for wildlife.
Thanks,
Jack
Deer devour my mash piles in October. Only exception is if it is highly fermented. Then mostly just the raccoons eat it.
They eat ours and we press over 250 bushels yearly they get more interested as the season grows colder hit it hard by dec then its goneDo deer eat the mash that is left after pressing apples?
My mash pile is not touched.
Just got the second to last gallon of cider out of the freezer.
The other one is probably for Easter.
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