Apple trees

Archeryrob · Feb 8, 2017

Who has planted them for deer and what varieties and amount did you plant? When do they start dropping apples and how long do they last. How long before they started producing?

I have room on my place and my buddies to fill in some apples trees. Both areas are only partial sun, but can be cleared some. So I am looking for advice and I am assuming non-dwarf regular trees.

newmuzzleloader · Feb 8, 2017

How long are you willing to wait before you get apples?
Standard trees won't produce until 6-10 yrs after planting. Semi-dwarf should put out good fruit by their 3-4th yr. If you have the room and time plant both.

Mike3888 · Feb 8, 2017

Try to find a few sawtooth oak trees. My oldest brother put some on his property about 6 years ago and produce acorns already. He gave me a few small starters that I planted on my pa property, I do have a huge apple tree on my property in pa, but I couldn't tell ya what type, soon as the apples drop the deer are there, good luck

davsco · Feb 8, 2017

make real sure you fence them off until they are tall enough they can hold their own because the deer WILL eat the twigs, branches and everything else.

also, try crabapple trees. we have both and the deer prefer crabapples! they even stand up on their hind legs to reach up higher.

Seagrave1963 · Feb 8, 2017

We planted 8 semi-dwarf MacIntosh and Granny Smith's ~4 years ago and actually had a couple of them start to produce. The apples were looking really good and we were about to be pick them when they just "disappeared"! So, yeah, they are great deer feeders!~

lazarus · Feb 9, 2017

Crab apples also can pollinate and will be pollinated by basically all other apple tree varieties. Regular apples there are only certain varieties that will pollinate certain other varieties. So you generally need to make sure you plant at least a couple different varieties within a certain distance of each other. Go look up the list. I think it is generally within about 500ft of each other if you want to be pretty sure they will pollinate each other.

Archeryrob · Feb 9, 2017

I was reading on the crab apples yesterday, a bit. My back corner of my hedgerow/corner is Bush honeysuckle. I want to prune that to the ground and plant some larger ones there. Variety suggestions?

I also tripped on to the small crab apples that hold fruit all winter and seem to be good bird food. I just trimmed the hedgerow back last year and lined the front with Rose of Sharon and the small crab apples would make my wife happy feeding the birds.

bigdv · Feb 9, 2017

I planted a dozen apple and pear trees 6 years ago. They don't produce many at all. the deer eat the buds and young apples before they can grow. They are very healthy and growing fast and have tons of buds in the spring. I've pruned the hell out of them but I don't get much fruit. Maybe I need some bees??????

Archeryrob · Feb 9, 2017

I did more research and with the poorer soil we have means we have Eastern Cedar out here I have to take Cedar apple rust seriously. There is no way I am removing it all around my property. I found many highly resistant varieties for birds and two for deer

Calloway - 1" to 1 1/2' fruit lasting into Decmeber - 15' to 25' tall
Dolgo - 1 1/2" to 2" fruit lasting into December - 35' to 40'

lazarus · Feb 9, 2017

Archeryrob said:
I did more research and with the poorer soil we have means we have Eastern Cedar out here I have to take Cedar apple rust seriously. There is no way I am removing it all around my property. I found many highly resistant varieties for birds and two for deer

Calloway - 1" to 1 1/2' fruit lasting into Decmeber - 15' to 25' tall
Dolgo - 1 1/2" to 2" fruit lasting into December - 35' to 40'

Yeah, I've got 3 dwarf apples. Can't recall the varieties off the top of my head. I think mac, pink lady and Fuji. Anyway, they are extremely susceptible, mildly and highly resistant to apple cedar rust. Took me 3 years to figure out what was wilting the leaves so bad on 1 and mildly on the other. I thought it was big damage. This past season I sprayed them with fungicide and that helped out enormously. From my reading another season or two of spraying them should finish clearing them up and then it should stay away or at worst I'll just need to spray once a year right after the buds start opening.

The one tree that hasn't been hit with rust would produce a lot of apples, but we have been trimming the blossoms back to let it grow as fast as possible. This year we only trimmed off half and it produced about 20 apples though caterpillars hit the tree bad and it lost half of those apples and half its leaves. Deer ear a few more. In the end I got 2 decent apples from the higher part of the tree. :sad20:

Oh well, maybe this year I'll finally start getting some harvestable amounts.

I planted a (full size, but sapling) peach on the other side of my yard and I plan to plant 2-3 more dwarf apples (resistant variety, lesson learned) and 3-4 dwarf pears.

Sadly on my 1.01 acres I can't hunt dear. I see them out there every once in awhile and they destroyed my 5000 sq-ft fenced garden. Time for an electric fence with peanut butter cans tied on it for this year (fortunately it was only the fall bean crop they ate).

wilcam47 · Feb 9, 2017

lazarus said:
Yeah, I've got 3 dwarf apples. Can't recall the varieties off the top of my head. I think mac, pink lady and Fuji. Anyway, they are extremely susceptible, mildly and highly resistant to apple cedar rust. Took me 3 years to figure out what was wilting the leaves so bad on 1 and mildly on the other. I thought it was big damage. This past season I sprayed them with fungicide and that helped out enormously. From my reading another season or two of spraying them should finish clearing them up and then it should stay away or at worst I'll just need to spray once a year right after the buds start opening.

The one tree that hasn't been hit with rust would produce a lot of apples, but we have been trimming the blossoms back to let it grow as fast as possible. This year we only trimmed off half and it produced about 20 apples though caterpillars hit the tree bad and it lost half of those apples and half its leaves. Deer ear a few more. In the end I got 2 decent apples from the higher part of the tree.

Oh well, maybe this year I'll finally start getting some harvestable amounts.

I planted a (full size, but sapling) peach on the other side of my yard and I plan to plant 2-3 more dwarf apples (resistant variety, lesson learned) and 3-4 dwarf pears.

Sadly on my 1.01 acres I can't hunt dear. I see them out there every once in awhile and they destroyed my 5000 sq-ft fenced garden. Time for an electric fence with peanut butter cans tied on it for this year (fortunately it was only the fall bean crop they ate).

Thats too bad are you inside city limits? or too close of neighbors?

I also have heard to spray trees with dormant oil in the spring before the trees start to bud. Ive got bugs problem but hopefully this spring spraying with the dormant oil will help the trees I planted last summer.

lazarus · Feb 10, 2017

wilcam47 said:
Thats too bad are you inside city limits? or too close of neighbors?

I also have heard to spray trees with dormant oil in the spring before the trees start to bud. Ive got bugs problem but hopefully this spring spraying with the dormant oil will help the trees I planted last summer.

Yeah, I've heard the oil thing as well. I just haven't tried it yet. Also rake out all the leaves under the tree as the spores over winter under the leaves.

I am in Sykesville in HoCo. Unless they change the archery safety zone to 40 yards no dice. Mostly barely over 1 acre properties up to about 30 for a couple of farms, but my side and back neighbors are 1-1.2ac. That said if they changed it to 50yds I know I could get permission from my back and one side neighbor so I could probably hunt a half acre or so over that garden.

I am here for the schools. Moving out to Washington or Frederick counties or up to Carroll and hopefully to at least 5-10ac once they all make it through school. I'll deal with the longer commute then. I also want 20+ somewhere like WV or far western MD. Retirement goal is 40 or so acres in WV and a condo in a city. My wife refuses to live more than an hour from a big city even though she loves rural. So that might be our compromise is living 9 months in the country and and 3 in a tiny condo in the city. Ugh

Alea Jacta Est · Feb 10, 2017

Don't forget the lowly persimmon. Deer cocaine.

gwchem · Feb 10, 2017

We ordered two bare root trees from stark brothers nursery. Both took off growing like crazy last summer, and I'm going to order different fruits this year.

The cherry tree we ordered died, but it was a sale item and I'm not too down on the 2:1 odds we got out of that deal.

Archeryrob · Feb 13, 2017

Finally ordered two 4' - 5' Bare rooted Dolgo trees from Willis Nursery. I'll clean up the corner of my hedge row and stick them in there and report back later on.

Still looking of the bird varieties, cheap. Damn, some of the ones that I found that are resistant to Cedar apple rust and have 1/2" berries that last through the winter are running $125 a tree.

Archeryrob · Apr 19, 2017

Just reporting back. The Dolgo's are starting to leaf out, one faster than the other. The one leafing out faster has 4 blossoms already and the one that is slower might have a bit more. I was surprised to see blossoms on such small trees. I put 20' of cattle fence in a circle around them to keep the deer off the leaves until they get bigger.

whistlersmother · Apr 19, 2017

My BIL has some pear trees. I was amused to see many large pears on a tiny little tree no taller than me.

Venison roast with a nice apple sauce sounds very nice.

Watch out for those damn squirrels - they:ll gobble the little apples.

outrider58 · Apr 19, 2017

Archeryrob said:
Just reporting back. The Dolgo's are starting to leaf out, one faster than the other. The one leafing out faster has 4 blossoms already and the one that is slower might have a bit more. I was surprised to see blossoms on such small trees. I put 20' of cattle fence in a circle around them to keep the deer off the leaves until they get bigger.

Don't forget, bonsai can bloom at six inches tall.

Doco Overboard · Apr 19, 2017

Plant Russian olive trees, they grow 3-5 years and make good cover and browse. No maintenance. Takes a while to get fruit trees going but they're great. I like pear trees.

Archeryrob · Apr 20, 2017

Doco Overboard said:
Plant Russian olive trees, they grow 3-5 years and make good cover and browse. No maintenance. Takes a while to get fruit trees going but they're great. I like pear trees.

I have Russian Olive and Bush Honeysuckle growing wild. The deer eat both, but they grow everywhere out here and its not really a draw to one spot. The bush Honey suckle has grown a 1' in some areas already. It's a bush that grows like a weed. I have loopers for tree pruning and cut Honeysuckle off at the ground and it still grows back with vengeance. I have to spray the regrowth for the ones I want dead.

The Russian Olive is nice stiff wood too. I've already pics some arrow shafts growing wild and might use one to put through a deer.

The olives are barely visible they are so damn small and its blooming right now.

Apple trees

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