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Deer and their favorite "food" trees


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As some of you know I have an old fruit farm that I hunt. There are probably 60 or so trees, most of them in the category of "slightly to moderately" neglected. I would say 2/3 are peaches with the rest being several varieties of apples and maybe a dozen or so plums that I did some real hard pruning on early this spring because of black knot.

I am actively planting clover this spring in an area north of the trees and plan to do a fall plot in an area that is dotted by some of the peaches and plums. The entire property has pretty abundant corn to the north and other crops like soy to the east that seem to rotate with corn as well.

I did some light maintenance trimming this early spring but I will never get the orchard to a point where it produces wegmans quality fruit. I just don't have the time or energy to prune and spray affectively. That said I have started and will do some spraying with my fimco 65g utv sprayer. My intentions are to keep the orchard from becoming a jungle and to produce "some fruit". My wife's uncle recommended that I thin many of the trees and focus on keeping a smaller group productive and I think that has merit. My dad thinks now is the time to plant some mast crop like oak, walnut, hickory etc. given how long they will take to become viable. My wife's grandpa says that deer don't eat the peaches at all, just rub them (and on this last part he's not wrong). 

Does anyone second that deer don't like or prefer peaches? I know they're not around at all during the fall to use as bait, like apples are when they're dropping. I also know that deer will eat just about anything when hungry... but are stone fruit pretty low down on the deer preference list? Would some section of this orchard benefit more from less peaches and more mast producers? 

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Deer love peaches and destroy them..but keep in mind thats in august/sept time frame. 

Mast producers will be ready in 10+ yrs to be of any value and will need protection. Do you want to invest that much time and effort?

And I repeat walnut is not a tree to be planted for deer. Worst choice ever..

Edited by suburbanfarmer
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Idk they eat my peaches pretty quick, but august sept  drop, Pears are tops but are early season 10 years or so  to produce from whip and sept early oct drop. . 

As for removing some apples i wouldn't.. some maybe later blossoming ,vs earlier and may produce when there is late frost. An dormant oil spray will take care of most of your diseases and can be sprayed in march or april when you have more time.  Sevin can be sprayed after fruit forms about the size of dime to combat white flies but you should of  killed most eggs with dormant oil spray. Just prune a few every winter and youll get them under control in few years. 

  As for more hard mast. 25 years for most oaks to produce from whips( nov drop), 3 to 5 years for chestnuts( oct drop) and dont flower till july so no chance of frost kill.  Hickory are late season and will usually be eaten after other hard mast is gone though turkey are in them from nut drop to they are gone. 

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I have a pear tree the deer love far more than the apples, but they come out too early in the year. I have planted a few chestnuts and plan to plant some more this year, these will obviously benefit my children more than me but the sooner the better.

I have been looking at getting some Arkansas Black apple trees. They produce later in the fall and the apples are bitter until the first frost which will be more beneficial during hunting season. 

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On 4/26/2022 at 12:04 PM, G-Man said:

Idk they eat my peaches pretty quick, but august sept  drop, Pears are tops but are early season 10 years or so  to produce from whip and sept early oct drop. . 

As for removing some apples i wouldn't.. some maybe later blossoming ,vs earlier and may produce when there is late frost. An dormant oil spray will take care of most of your diseases and can be sprayed in march or april when you have more time.  Sevin can be sprayed after fruit forms about the size of dime to combat white flies but you should of  killed most eggs with dormant oil spray. Just prune a few every winter and youll get them under control in few years. 

  As for more hard mast. 25 years for most oaks to produce from whips( nov drop), 3 to 5 years for chestnuts( oct drop) and dont flower till july so no chance of frost kill.  Hickory are late season and will usually be eaten after other hard mast is gone though turkey are in them from nut drop to they are gone. 

great advice thanks. As I've been doing my research I'm for sure going to do a dormant spray next winter. Right now I'm doing copper for peaches and fruit tree for the apples. 

As for thinning, I'd be removing peaches, not apples. Some of these apple trees are freaking huge though. 

Edited by Belo
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