BuckAlley

I too found myself in the same type situation with a new hunitng lease. Right in the center of the piece was a small old apple orchard. The first yr. we didn't take long to discover what apples that did produce was a major deer magnet. So I decided it was best to get the most out of those tree's as possible. I spoke to a local apple orchard on how to care for them. They advised heavy pruning here in NY during the months of Feb. & March. Much like others have suggested above. They also recommended some fertilizing be done, by spreading bagged fertlizer around the tree's along the drip line of the outter branches. Then I saw a show on the Outdoor ch. Where guys fertlized their apples, by digging several holes in the ground around the drip line, dumping a coffee can sized amount of fertlizer in each hole, then covering up. This acts the same as the push in ground fertilzer sticks. I can say we have seen some decent results with the health of the tree's. There's only been a couple that don't seem to be recovering from yrs of being left to rot.