Psyched! Apples FINALLY!

When we 1st bought our back 40 acres in 08, I started building my "whitetail engagement area", first by adding a feeder, a couple food plots and cleaning up current oaks and a couple of persimmons. Also added a mineral site. Then came the elevated box blind. I also planted a couple pear trees and some saw tooth oaks.

I also a planted an Arkansas Black apple tree with a Dolgo crab-apple tree as a pollinator. I fenced them, watered and fertilized them, pruned them and they grew. That was in the fall of 08, neither had produced a thing until last year when I got 1 solitary AB Apple! I have another AB tree in my orchard by the house that's been loaded with apples since the 3rd year it was planted. I'd just about given up, bad location, crappy soil, bad luck, defective tree, etc.

Checked the crab apple yesterday and low an behold a single crab apple...then I spotted another and another, probably 10 overall! Then I checked the AB, sure enough apples, lots of them! That corner of the property is now a deer smorgasbord 12 years in the making!

To celebrate, I transplanted a couple swamp white oaks I found by our creek to a couple moist spots and last night bought 3 Dunstan Chestnut trees from Walmart of all places. I'll get them in the gournd tonight. Going to take another 10 years for the chestnut trees to produce and probably 20 for the white oaks, but it looks like the deer can munch on apples till then.

Buzznrose, yup the trees meet the criteria, and it's odd that the one AB hadn't produced even though it had an 8 yr head start, while the other has produced a a lot. I think I just picked a bad spot, plenty of sun, but its in a slight bowl and I didn't do a soil test. I researched most of my trees on line for zone and also pollinators, then tried my best to procure locally.

Buck460XVR, I'll look up the Antonovka trees. The AB are also late dropping, and are supposed to keep well even when laying on the ground. Our rifle season normally starts 1 DEC, so the later dropping the better. I'm also going to add some earlier for variety and to cover muzzleloader and archery.

Armored farmer, we're lucky, there's already a small persimmons grove sitting on the area now. I've cleaned up those trees and have stopped mowing close to it in hopes we get more from it. A couple years ago I watched a little 6 pt on his hind legs rearing up to grab a couple.

Buzznrose said:

Sounds good. I’ve learned some trees just seem to spend their first several or more years establishing a solid root system. Could be you planted your tree above a rocky spot and it needed to really stretch out. Just a guess...I have rocky soil and am having to be patient with several of my peaches and apples...

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It's even worse with the oaks, 1st couple years nothing as they build their root system, then they sort of just take off gaining a couple feet a year. I've pretty much given up on planting saplings for that reason. I'd like to see some benefit during my lifetime.