planting hickory nuts ?

[JFK52]

I have a shag bark hickory tree in my home yard that is loaded with nuts this year. I have beaten the squirrels to the nuts and gathered about 200+ nuts. I have some with the green outer shell on them. Most are just the white inner nut.
I want to plant these nuts on my deer hunting land which is 80 miles North and has no hickory trees. My question is: how deep do I plant these nuts this fall? I have sprayed and mowed the areas to be planted and most of them get full sun. What kind of spacing do I give the nuts? My land is in the town of Almond, Portage county WI. It is typically referred to as the "Central Sands" area.
I realize this is a long shot project to actually get a growing tree, but what the heck nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I believe that I am doing a good deed if I leave the land in better condition than when I first bought it.

 

[bigbendmarine]

JFK52, sometimes we do things for the wildlife and sometimes things for us because we just want to do so. I've done fair share of both and nothing wrong with either! But if focused on doing it for the deer, do you think they'll be able to easily take on the shells? My place is absolutely covered with hickories and the deer don't touch them whereas I find them under my live oaks eating acorns from the time the first acorn drops until the last one falls. If doing it because you like the trees / want to have some fun with the project, again I DO understand. Got one on my place that's a true monster and I love the yellow coloration the leaves have in the fall.

 

[bigbendmarine]

As for method, I found this link and sounds very much like you just use the same general process as acorns (float testing, planting under a bit of soil, and protecting from critters).
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/2223428/anyone-raised-hickory-trees-from-seed

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

I've had good luck planting acorns and wild plum seeds by just walking around with a shovel and throwing a couple seeds on the ground and cover with an inch or so of dirt. Hickory nuts are roughly the same size, so I'm pretty sure they would grow with the same planting procedure. Gopher mounds are good places to plant the seeds since the loose dirt is easier to cover seeds than dense sod.

 

[yoderjac]

I have a shag bark hickory tree in my home yard that is loaded with nuts this year. I have beaten the squirrels to the nuts and gathered about 200+ nuts. I have some with the green outer shell on them. Most are just the white inner nut.
I want to plant these nuts on my deer hunting land which is 80 miles North and has no hickory trees. My question is: how deep do I plant these nuts this fall? I have sprayed and mowed the areas to be planted and most of them get full sun. What kind of spacing do I give the nuts? My land is in the town of Almond, Portage county WI. It is typically referred to as the "Central Sands" area.
I realize this is a long shot project to actually get a growing tree, but what the heck nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I believe that I am doing a good deed if I leave the land in better condition than when I first bought it.

Don't know about your area, but hickory nuts in my area are not eaten by deer. I think the shells are too hard to crack. They just sit on the ground with deer ignoring them. If the acorn crop is poor, you will always find squirrels in our hickories. I've heard conflicting information about deer using pecans (related species). I decided to graft some thin shell pecans to some of our hickories. I only got about a 30% take. The pecans have been slow growers. The jury is still out if they will produce nuts and if deer will use them.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[Boll Weevil]

In my area, hickories = squirrel food and make a low value log upon financial maturity. Both shagbark and shellbark are difficult to debark and mills around here don't hardly want'em and when they do don't give top dollar. Totally understand and agree with bigbend...sometimes it's simply doing something we want to do and that's good too.

I say if you want to plant them just use Mother Nature as a guide as far as planting depth and mimic the squirrels. 1-1.5" deep in places a little sun can get through; germination will occur.

 

[H20fwler]

I don't see deer eating the nuts either, but I do see squirrels, turkeys and wood ducks eating them. I do see deer eating hickory tree leaves, sometimes dead ones. The trees have timber value in my area but not as good as walnut or oak...they are great for den&nest trees for all kinds of wildlife due to the many holes the old ones get and the tendency for some to go hollow. It's also an easy wood to cut, burns and splits good.

 

[JFK52]

Deer are the primary focus of the management efforts on my land. However, I find that a lot of other small game benefits directly from the things I do for the deer. Turkeys feed in my food plots. Grouse love my apple trees. I have planted specific forbs in my prairie for Monarch butterflies and bees.
I do have a small population of grey squirrels on my land also. So my guess is that they will be the ones to eat the hickory nuts just as they do at my house.
Plus this is just something I want to try on the rocky areas where I am never going to attempt food plots.

 

[yoderjac]

Deer are the primary focus of the management efforts on my land. However, I find that a lot of other small game benefits directly from the things I do for the deer. Turkeys feed in my food plots. Grouse love my apple trees. I have planted specific forbs in my prairie for Monarch butterflies and bees.
I do have a small population of grey squirrels on my land also. So my guess is that they will be the ones to eat the hickory nuts just as they do at my house.
Plus this is just something I want to try on the rocky areas where I am never going to attempt food plots.

While deer and turkey are primary for me, we manage for broader wildlife benefit. I tend to avoid adding management elements say like Chufa that are primarily limited to benefiting a single species when there are so many options that can benefit both deer, turkey, and other wildlife.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[cavey]

"I believe that I am doing a good deed if I leave the land in better condition than when I first bought it."

I think that's the key, leaving the land in a better state than you found it..... which honestly means having a plan for diversity. In the end your target critters will benefit too, if not directly... A mono culture is a sterile environment and a pretty boring one too and in my opinion if you have the land and our not limited by space - planting a little of everything is pretty cool. Hickory trees are a solid choice for doing just that, I would guess you have plenty of oaks anyways.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_PLANTMATERIALS/publications/wvpmcot12151.pdf

Just do what the squirrels do....
Seed are covered with soil to a depth equal to 1 and 1/2 times the average diameter of the seed;

 

[Tap]

Don't know about your area, but hickory nuts in my area are not eaten by deer. I think the shells are too hard to crack. They just sit on the ground with deer ignoring them. If the acorn crop is poor, you will always find squirrels in our hickories. I've heard conflicting information about deer using pecans (related species). I decided to graft some thin shell pecans to some of our hickories. I only got about a 30% take. The pecans have been slow growers. The jury is still out if they will produce nuts and if deer will use them.

Thanks,

Jack

There has been a few other threads on the question as to whether or not deer eat hickory nuts and I've always been adamant that they do not eat them. My yard has over 20 mature shagbark that produce bumper crops every year and my yard has deer in it that I study daily. Until yesterday, I'd only ever watched 1 deer attempt to eat a hickory nut and he failed to crack it after many attempts. The nut would slip from between his teeth and he would pick it back up and try over and over to crack it but couldn't get it done. Yesterday, I watched a fawn working on eating hickory nuts, but this deer was actually swallowing them. She would spend minutes trying to crack one and then finally swallow. I can't say if she actually cracked the nuts or was swallowing them whole.
I've watched deer here for literally thousands of hours over the 31 years I've lived here and only twice have I watched any deer even try to eat a shagbark nut. This 2nd time, the deer at least swallowed more than 1 nut. Whether that deer could convert it into chewable cud, I cannot say.

 

[Bill]

I've watched deer here for literally thousands of hours over the 31 years I've lived here and only twice have I watched any deer even try to eat a shagbark nut.

That's the first I've ever heard of it. Hope it breaks down or she spits them out later. They could plug the system up :)