How many fruit trees to plant?

Apple trees ready for transplant this spring.
looks like a nice project. Your deer have to be some of the happiest deer around!

For the most part I am taking a break from apple trees this spring, I just have a couple on order, and I want to try my hand at grafting onto a flowering crab that only produces marble size bird apples. This year my focus shifted to bushes for wildlife, for browse, and for cover. I am also going to start the first year of 3 of planting cover, and creating bedding areas with adding a few different varieties of spruce and pines. This time I am going with Bucks plan, plant bigger, and prep them and protect them, rather then just planting 1000 bare root trees, and not seeing a single one make it a year.
 
"ADF: All of the brassica leaves provided highly digestible forage – less than 19% ADF – that was above 32% crude protein before and after frost, which is very high. It is not uncommon in some areas to observe deer eating brassica leaves early in deer season. Deer seek foods higher in digestible carbohydrates and fats as sources of energy when the weather gets cold. Deer may select the energy-rich taproots later in the season, but our results show these forages are equally high in sugar before and after frost. In other words: No, brassicas do not get sweeter after frost."

The deer here hardly touch them at all until after the first good freeze, then they eat them to the ground.
Something has to be changing.
 
The deer in my area go after sugar beets then turnips then radishes in that order, always mowing off the greens first...so if I even bother with brassicas anymore its only the sugar beets.

After acorns a huge pile of corn is the biggest draw for deer here. It still doesn't stop me from planting hundreds of fruit/nut trees and shrubs for them to browse, like everyone has said variety seems to be the key....and fruit trees and shrubs are fun to mess with in the off season.
 
I like to plant about 5 or 6 trees every year. I have a few open areas where I can put them in without totally destroying existing cover or cutting down good mast trees. Each tree gets good protection, and because I don’t have too many (30 to 40), I enjoy watching each one grow and produce fruit over time. I have a mix of “eating” apples and crabs, favoring late hanging varieties.
 
Access to other food sources?

Maybe, I am in a very high ag area that time of year there are a lot of options yet for deer and something about the brassicas after a freeze gets them after them, at least the greens anyway.
 
How many is too many / enough?? As many as you have land & time to plant!!

After the seedlings from Sandbur and the 4 apple & crab apple trees coming from Blue Hill this spring, our camp will be up to about 90 - 92 fruit trees since 2013. Included in that number are 3 pear trees - 2 Kieffer and 1 Morse hybrid pear - all of which have produced well so far. I started figuring to only plant about 10 apple and crab apple trees, but other members of our camp wanted more. And we already had 5 OLD apple trees planted years ago on the property. We planted more than we need for sure - but we'll probably lose a few to bear damage. Trying to overplant because of the bears.

As others have said, we aim to maintain year-round food sources. Diversity is key for us, as it is for many of you guys on here. Hawthorns, ROD, high bush cranberry, serviceberry trees, Chinese chestnuts all play a role. We also plant a variety of clover-centric food plots, along with WW, WR, oats, & chicory. As for brassicas - Groundhog radish tops get hit first along with DER and Pasja forage brassica, then the turnip tops. Turnip bulbs are the last thing to get chewed, and it's usually after our deer seasons are over. In our location we have MILES of oaks dropping acorns - nature's go-to food in the fall.
 
Sounds like the consensus is that if there is room for one more food source, fill it!

Poorsand, I am trying to have that foresight about retirement. I'll turn 40 this year. I hunt mobile on thousands of acres of public and have access to about 500 acres of private. But, I know someday I'll have to start taking it easy with prehung stands and blinds and that is the goal for the 7 acres.
 
For years sugar beet farmers would spray with 24D pre harvest to raise sugar levels
 
I like to think a tree will appreciate about $20 a year
 
I don't know which state your land is in, but they may have a software program like this one from the University of Wisconsin. It allows a guy to enter in soil test results and then it shows the maximum tonnage per acre one could expect to grow on that ground. A guy can select a crop of interest from several choices you load into the drop down menu. If the cost of the fertilizer is over budget, a guy can select lower yield targets, for some of the crop choices at least.

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It's a prok. I bought it off an arborist south of me who said I was at the edge of their range. He said try one to see if it lives then buy more if it does. It's been 5 years and the tree has grown well so I might get more.

The oaks are all white oak on my property. I throw down clover wherever I can and will be trying pumpkins this year as well. I don't think 7 acres is going to feed deer year around, I'm mostly interested in being a destination from October through December. There is plenty of bedding on other properties.
You have a lot going on, but you only have too many if they start or will shade each other out, imo. You can deal with that at a later date. At that time, thin out to favor your better trees. I'd keep planting for variety. Since you have white oaks, I'd add some red varieties. I'm trying a northern red/shumard cross hoping for some later drop times. I don't know where you are located, but you may get away with nutalls. They're supposed to drop real late. I'm in 5b and get a lot of die off every year. Probably going to pull mine and plant more of the hybrids.
 
Some guys factor in what they want to have when they become elderly: a field to replant or an established grove of apple trees.
That is were I'm at and why I always say the time to plant an apple tree is - ten years ago ( that is a quote I heard here on this forum and adopted it). My goal is to get another 100 apple trees or so out this spring from my nursery. I have a draw at the back of the farm that was clear cut, it was at the edge of a hidden 3-4 acre field in the woods - Im expanding a small orchard there into the draw adding a water hole encircling the cut edge with wildlife shrubs and will be seeding the orchard into a long term plot. A nice little secure spot to grow old sitting in my stand spot. A spot with a little bit of everything.
 
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