all the apple trees in my town in new jersey are loaded to the point the trees looked stressed . last year hardly a one. gotta be nature.

Most likely frost... even on down years I have some apples on all of my apple trees. I put in 17 food plots this year, but prefer hunting my apple trees over all of them!!

Last year - we had less than None. That was following a bumper crop the year before. No apples like we had last year makes for an odd fall/winter. The Deer related to completely different food & bedding areas for us. It was tough for us last year - and we had to learn how the deer related to other food sources.

This year - we have a "normal" year - where maybe 1/2 the trees have moderate apple numbers. This is good - great actually and better than when apples are EVERYWHERE.

Our General area is abandoned farm land - and there are 1000s of apple trees on ours, and the surrounding properties. When we have too many apples - we cannot begin to pattern the deer on apples - they just go where-ever.

The Deer use the old "orchards" (really just old overgrown cowpastures) as Staging areas, feasting on desert (apples) before they go to the clover, corn or other foodplots. We often target them for afternoon hunts.

FH

We do have a couple of food plots going so, I guess we will have to adapt our strategies. We will do some pruning and fertilizing and hope for a better crop in '08