What fruit trees are a good deer attractant?
Filed under: Ask Grant, Food Plots, Tree Plots
Really enjoy your videos, guidance and passion for developing deer management strategies. I’ve learned a lot from your web site!
This is a suggestion based on an experiance I am happy to be having as a result of a neighbor setting up bee hives on his property. My neighbor set up 4 or 5 bee hives early this spring and I’ve noticed them all over my wild apple and plum trees when they were in bloom. the droning was incredible! Now the apples and plums have started to grow and I have never seen them producing so much fruit! (I’ve had the property for 9 years). Some of the plum tree branches are actually breaking under the weight of the fruit. My apple trees, one in particular that is close to my house, seem to have 50% more apples this year. We have also had good rain in the area (South West corner of Wisconsin). So if fruit bearing trees are part of your habitat strategy, Bee hives may be a good investment to promote pollination with a pleasant side effect of being able to collect some honey!
Guess I’ll add a question: How does fruit bearing trees and brush such as black caps, rasberries etc, play into your forage habitat planning?
Thanks,
Travis
Travis,
Like you, I have a friend that keeps his bees at our place! I enjoy the work they do and the honey they make!!
I have a tree plot (fruit and nut producing trees planting within a forage-based food plot) at my place! Here in southern Missouri I prefer fruit trees as the landscape is primarily covered by oaks. I usually prefer plums and pears to apple trees simply because apples trees tend to require a lot more maintenance to produce fruit. I get my tree stock from Flatwood Natives and have experienced good success and I appreciate thier service and advice!
You can see some of the planting and maintenance advice from Flatwood Natives in episode #247 here.
There’s lots of native soft mass at my ranch as a results of the native habitat management. These include wild strawberries, dewberries, blackberries, etc. Most of these ripen long before season opens but do provide a source of energy for deer and other wildlife species.
Thank you for watching http://www.GrowingDeer.tv!
