Chuck R.
Member
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.
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.