mainebowhunter wrote:Double Draw wrote:To answer your question, no, all apples are not created equal. There are dozens of factors that can influence the behavior of deer as they interact with apple trees. As far as the apple trees themselves go there is everything from very small crab apples that are no larger than a pea in fruit size to huge apples that rival the size of grapefruits. There are sweet, semi-sweet and sour apples. Apples mature at varying times. Here in Pennsylvania they can mature anywhere from late-July all the way through the heart of hunting season. Some varieties don't even drop their fruit until new growth starts in the spring. These are all factors to consider in whether or not a tree may be attractive to a dear. As far as deer preference goes you will simply have to do the hard work of observing which trees deer gravitate to at various times during the hunting season. I grow apple trees as part of my farm operation. I am currently working on a study of apple trees on several properties to determine which trees are preferred by deer and then propagating the preferred types. Human taste of an apple does not seem to match deer taste for an apple. In other words, a sweet apple may be our preference but it may not be the preference of a deer. As far as trying to identify what kind of apple tree you are looking at this can be a difficult task. If you are on an old property where you suspect there were apple trees planted by a landowner you may be able to determine what kind of apple tree they are by doing an internet search. The easiest way to do this is to look at where the fruit is developing on the tree. Apples develop in three ways: on fruiting spurs, on branch tips, and some trees produce fruit on both (and are called semi-spur bearing). There are lists on the internet that describe the different varieties and how they bear fruit in this regard. A fruit spur, which you can Google, is a small growth that usually protrudes from a branch. They are usually only a couple of inches long and they only grow 1/4 inch or so per year. They look a bit like lava that is squeezing out of an opening in the Earth and hardening as it reaches the surface. If you notice that all of the apples are on these fruiting spurs the tree is a spur bearing tree. On the other hand if you see that most of the apples are near the tips of the branches these are tip bearing apple trees. If it seems to be a mismash of the two you have a semi spur bearing tree. As I said before, there are lists that describe what kind of apple trees grow in these various manners. If you're on an older property that you know was a homestead at one time do some research on the older varieties that existed a hundred years ago or so. Having said all of that, the vast majority of apple trees growing in the wild are a mixture of a variety of apple trees that have cross-pollinated. In addition, apple seeds do not grow true to the parent tree. So you are constantly getting new varieties of trees whenever fruit drops and seeds itself. So in reality, there may be millions of types of apple trees in existence in your state. This is why I think deer gravitate to certain trees and not others. Little nuances in their taste, texture, location, and drop time all influence how much a deer like the tree. If the tree is not on public property you can fertilize it, as someone mentioned, and this may make the tree more attractive to deer. However, I would caution using a fertilizer that has high nitrogen content as that facilitates vegetative growth and usually limits fruiting on the tree. You can also manage apple trees by cutting out any dead wood, broken or damaged branches and diseased wood. Pruning is helpful for fruit production but it's difficult to describe how to do on paper. I took a course and I've learned by pruning lots and lots of trees. You can learn some of the principles on YouTube or see if your local ag extension offers a course. One final thought, although it doesn't deal with apple trees it does deal with fruit trees in general. And the principle applies to apples. My parents had a peach tree that grew in their yard. It was planted by my grandma from seed. It actually grew similar to the parent tree and its fruit quality and growing traits. After about 50 years of growing the tree had seen better days so my parents took several of the peach stones and planted them. One of them grew really well. The original peach tree was one of the last peaches to mature during the growing season. The off-spring which was started by my parents is one of the first peach trees to mature in the growing season. This is just an illustration of the cadre of options you can end up with seed grown fruit trees. I hope there's something helpful in what I've written. If you have any specific questions please please feel free to ask.
I spent the winter pruning apple trees and fertilizing with a low nitrogen fertilizer. Lugged lot of it in a backpack to trees I know big bucks frequent in daylight.
Be interesting to see if deer show a preference to the fertilized tree. Bowhunter4life said he knew a guy that saw a difference on preference...all happened pure accident. So figure I would see if I could reproduce on purpose.
Fertilizer and sunlight (lack of canopy competition) are the keys to not only lots of apples but the most nutritious ones. I all but guarantee they will hit those trees with preference.
