BobCo19-65

Well, I kind of have to put my food plot dream on hold a while. Just don't have the equipment, or man hoursto turn my wooded land into plots. I canopen up a few areas though to get some sun and have decided on the following trees for attracting whitetails from September-November.

The land has a few very old apple trees that I am trying to get producing. It also has tons of Autumn Olive which is everywhere. The land is South Central NY.

My land has a PH around 5.5 and has some clay (but I can spot lime)

1. Sawtooth Oaks
2. Chinese Chestnut
3. Bartlett Pear
4. Granny Smith Apples (late harvest)
5. Robinson Crabapple (mainly for pollination)
6. American Plum (early harvest)

Opinions?

Dan O.

I believe that you may be in zone 5. That puts you at the extreme for growing sawtooth oaks unless you have hardy stock. I've been running into that problem as the trees winter kill every year and never get taller. It's the same with the Chinese Chestnut. They both will need good cultivation and/or mulching to survive in grass. The soil pH is good and you're last three choices should work well. You may want to plant some mid season apples for bow season.

Dan O.

BobCo19-65

It depends on what map you are lookng at. Some say 5, some say 6, some say 5b.

I know that wind chills get pretty cold. But actual temperatures very, very rarely get below -5 which would put it in zone 6.

BuckAlley

I've planted several Pin Oak, my area is a zone 4, possibly zone 5. The Pin Oak are doing real well. I just recently bought a few sawtooth oak on sale to give them a try. If they don't make it, its not a big investment loss.
I'd also look more into your present growings. Our land also had some old scrub apples. They produced ok, but needed major attention. We slowly pruned them over a period of 3-4 yrs. Didn't want to just hack them off right away being older. Fertilized them around tree line by digging small holes, and dumping a coffee can size amount fertlizer in each hole. Some have come along nicely. Others were at their lifes end, so we cut them down opening the sunlight for ones doing well.
If you have Cardinal Autumn Olive over Russian Olive. The Autumn Olive should be a good deer attractant as well. But if over run, may want to cut them out, and leave to areas want deer to move too in your woods.

Robertesq1

I planted 10 firecracker crabapples last week... They are late harvest and grow apples about 2 inches around with red flesh. I opened up some openings and protected the trees (5-6 footers) with the slash/branches from the felled trees. Everything is sprouting and I hope there is better browse to distract the deer.... Will find out in the next two weeks.

My plan is to grab "leftover trees" at the end of the season sale and plant them as well....

BobCo19-65

Robert, those firecracker crabapples look pretty interesting and seem pretty hardy. I never heard of them before. Did you get them locally?

Buckalley. That is pretty much exactly what we are doing with the apples on our land. This is the third yearof taking care of them. We had a soil analysis done and are using their recommendations on liming and fert. I have one though that is not producing (which is a shame). We're still trying to get it to start again though.

Dan O.

Bob; the deer get picky when you reach an overabundance of apples to the number of deer. They strip all of my named varieties (MacIntosh, Spy, Delicious, Courtland) before they work their way through the seedling apples.

Sawtooth oaks are great but try to get seedlings from local seed. They will be acclimatized to your area.

Dan O.

Robertesq1

Bob, I got them from a local distributer with whom I have had very good luck with in the past... but they come from a nursery.

Dan I have 100 acres so my twenty or so apples have many of other mast trees to provide distractions. Given the diferring harvest times I have yet seen an apple survive a nightfall.

BobCo19-65

Thanks for the advise one the sawthooths. Correct me if I'm wrong but they have a tap root correct? So I defenetely wouldn't want much more then a seedlnig.

On the apples. My land is ispart a huge wood lot with not much aggriculture in the area. I have actual hunted near the few apple trees that are around and have actually seen deer mill around/bed/wait for apples to drop. Once you hear one drop, you have a pretty good chance of a deer moving in shortly after.

Beside planting a few more apples, I also am looking to plant plum, pears, crabapples.

habitat

There are some guys growing persimmions up in that area also,check out qdma.com for lots more info