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Old 05-18-2008, 12:41 AM
  #9  
nyorange
Fork Horn
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: NY METRO AREA
Posts: 294
Default RE: What trees to plant?

The nut trees are great and are also valuable as timber . Wild apple trees can usually be bought pretty cheaply and are great browse and the fruit brings in everything.Whatever you do plant consider that they will have to be protected for a few years until they get big enought to survive browsing. Here in NY/catskills planting an apple or nuttree is a complete waste of time unless you build a fencing/cage around it as plants that produce choice fruit or nutsusually have leaves, bark and stems that are a preferred browse of deer when young. If you don't do amnything the deer will eat it to a stump and it will never grow. I found that in a lot of areas it is much easier to plant staghorn sumac, elderberries etc (tree/shrub type plants) as I can plant thirty of those in the time in take me to plant one apple tree inrocky soil. I can also hike around with them and just take a shovel and like twenty bareroot cuttings and plant them anywhere I think they may grow. ALot of the others you need to carry pot and soil etc. You can also consider mulberries and other less popular fruiting trees that grow faster and are cheaper. You should also consider when the tree/shrub you want to plant will fruit and if you are planning on it happening during hunting season. Some are in june or august and others are sept and some apples hold fruit till october.Picking specificstrains of apples will give you a much better control over when the tree will produce fruit then just buying wild apple treeswhere you never really know what you will get and they'll usually give you some good fruit to eat too(try and get ones that are diseas tolerant and not ones that require alot of chemicals to thriveif you opt them over wild ones.One other thing is to consider how the tree pollinates itself to produce fruit. If you are only planting one of a type then you may have problems as alot require cross pollination to produce any fruit/nuts of value so you may have to plant a few to get the most out of them. If you are only planting one then make sure you get one that is failry common in the area so it will cross pollinate with those others or get one that self pollinates. Hope it helps and really try to speak to someone in your area as they will have alot moreuseful info on what grows and works in your area.
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