Overhead Food Plots

[deerminator]

Good article about planting fruit trees to attract deer in Jan. Deer and Deer Hunting. They recommend pear trees above all else in terms of attracting deer and said if you buy quality trees, they can be producing a good amount of fruit in less than 5 years. I was thinking about ordering some bare root stock and planting about a dozen pear and apple trees in some openings in our woods with good sunlight in the spring. Any recommendations on where to buy them? So far I've been looking at them online and many sites have Minnesota cold hearty varieties for good prices. But I'd rather buy local from a nursery in Minnesota. Going to check with a few here around the Willmar are in the meantime. Thanks for any and all replies.

[LABS4ME]

Any garden center in your area will be able to order you bare root stock. I'd start with 1" cal. trees. keep the roots moist in transit. Do not let them dry out or you can lose the tree. Make sure to get varieties that cross pollinate each other. Also do some good soil amendments when planting them and protect the trunk and branches from browsing and rubbing.

An even better way to plant them is to ask the garden center (or any landscaper) for some used 15-25 gallon nursery pots. They shouldn't cost you a dime. Plant them in a good garden soil in the spring... grow them at your house all spring and summer and transplant the end of Sept. They will continue to put root on till about Thanksgiving and again the following spring before leafing out... no transplant shock and you make sure they are healthy and growing before going through the effort of planting and no need to nurture them in the woods...

Good Luck!

Ken

[deerminator]

Thanks for the advice. I will talk to the Green Lake Nursery, which is our closest local one and a very good one soon. They sold me a cool crab apple tree a few years back and gave me great advice on planting. Thanks to that, the tree is doing really well, and producing huge pink prairie fire blooms each spring with crab apples that follow that do not fall off (which I really like). The birds and critters have them gone by the next spring. I bought that and some other trees bare root and really like that approach. You're right, though, you have to take some care in transporting, handling and planting. I can't believe I hadn't thought of this idea before - overhead food plots. We don't have enough opening in our woods for a real food plot nor do I really want to clear cut any of it. But there sure are enough openings for a cluster of fruit trees here and there. Might draw them out of the sloughs and into our woods on the way to the neighboring ag fields a little earlier. Thanks again.

[Dotch]

Good advice from Ken, especially in instances where hauling water becomes an issue. One other thing to add is to make sure you remember to wrap the trees with tree wrap before winter. New trees are frequently the bunnies and voles first targets even if there are plenty of other trees for them to choose from. They somehow seem to know that you've paid good money for them and maybe they taste better as a result. Never asked them however. We planted a couple pear trees this spring, not food plot related but they were slower starters relative to the apple and crabapple trees we've planted. Once it started raining and warmed up though they got rolling & were fine. Parker and Patten are probably the two most commonly planted varieties here in MN.

[deerminator]

Thanks for the recommendations. I was thining of getting a couple of each - apple and pear - depending on what the nursery recommended. I will mention these varieties. The D&DH article had a sidebar on Plantra tubes to protect the tree trunks in the early years. Bottom line, the message was protect them from critters and weather. My dad actually had a degree in Forestery from the UofM. Sadly he died when I was just 18. I managed to pick up some of his green thumb but nowhere what he did when planting trees. Been mostly successful but had some misses too. Thx guys.

[Powerstroke]

One of the things I use to protect tree trucks from the small critters is window screen. Cut a piece of window screen 12-18" long and wide enough to go around the truck with some extra left to staple together. It will keep the gnawing critters away from the truck and the staple and screen are weak enough that they will not girdle the tree as it gets bigger.

We use the planting tubes for bare root stock to protect from deer browse.

Don't be afraid of using seedlings vs. 1" trees. A 1" tree looks very well established when you plant it but will cost a whole lot more out the door. You can buy many more seedlings and plant them and they will grow nearly as well. For the price of 4 larger trees you can have 100 seedlings. Just keep in mind when considering your goals for your property.

I've got 3- 1" plum trees that were grafted to rootstock just 3 seasons ago and put on fruit this year. I also have 5 apple trees that I grafted myself to rootstock 4 seasons ago and 2 of them are over 6ft tall and 1" diameter. I'm hoping for apples on them this seasons. This has cost me roughly $40.

[Pit Bull]

This spring I planted 300 fruit tree seedings. A bought them from the MN state nursery. The box had plum, chokecherry, cranberry, dogwood, crabapple, and Pincherry. I planted them all in tree tubes and made a perimiter around my food plots. Many of them grew above the 4 foot tube by fall. The deer did browse on some of them so I wish I would have got the 5 foot tubes. But I am spraying them to keep the deer away.

I also plated 24 six foot tall apple trees of 4 different varieties from a local apple orchard. The first year these trees need lots of water to establish roots. Trunk protectors are a must, I also used weed mats and had to put a fence around them to keep the deer from eating the branches.

This was not cheap but I belive it will pay big divedends in the long run for all the wildlife. Can't wait for the next couple of years when all these bloom in the spring it will be a awesome sight.