During last season i found a group of overgrown crabapple trees. So this year, I pruned them down and fertilized them. I was just wondering what kind of success people have had hunting deer near crabapple trees? And when do they start producing the fruit?

THEMAKKER13,
I have never hunted on or around crabapple trees as I don't own any at my present home. We did own five crabapple trees when we lived in Anchorage and the moose loved them! When they were done with the fruit they would eat the branches. I ended up having to install a 6 foot chainlink fence to keep them off!

However, a neighbor down the road (here in Northern VA) has one and he says the deer LOVE them! I would suspect the type of crabapple would also make a difference as I have seen the small red ones (fruit about the size of a dime and no juice to speak of) and I have seen larger fruit (about the size of a Kennedy half dollar).

Our fruit on our trees in AK would ripen in August!

Ok thanks a lot. This is great news. I know where my primary stands going this year...

It is a nice snack for em' but they'll snatch em' up quick. If you have hard mast food like acorns, a water source, and enough cover nearby they might not need to travel too far between food and cover. Correct stand placement is critical and don't let them know that you've been their living room!

I do have a big creek,acorns, and thick cover. The thing I worry about is human disturbance, since my family goes hiking in our woods frequently

Deer love apples. A drawback is that there is only about a 2-3 week period where a single tree will bear fruit. So if you are going to utilize apple trees, you should plant varieties that mature at different times. You might want to add a few trees to your crab apple mix. I have an orchard with 4 crabs and 9 regular apples. One or two trees are just starting to bear fruit in small amounts. My concern in the future would be bears - we don't have that many right in our area (black bears) but it only takes one to do a whole lot of damage.

Yeah no black bears where I live. I have several trees and they are pretty tall so I'm counting on the ripe ones at the top falling to the ground, because the deer can't reach them which will give me some more time. Yeah I'd like to plant some pear trees. I read that they were easy to maintain.

I would encourage planting Pears over apples. Easier to maintain, produces earlier, far less diseases, much better/higher yields....all around more dependable.

We just found a few crabapple trees on our hunting land and the deer are all over them. Going to put up a stand nearby.

When would be the best time to fertilize them and with what?