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Just curious, but do you southern deer hunters plant apple trees as wildlife food plots? In the north apples are pretty successful, to the extent that the deer will strip the branches from small trees in winter to eat the buds that would have been next years leaves and growth. It's a preferred browse for them, and they go for it even when other food sources are available. Fruit is a strong fall attractant too.
Most apple varieties don't do well down here and ripe/drop well before deer season.
Where I grew up in Pa they were the best Bow hunting spots.
I wondered if that would be the case- low chill hours probably keep some varieties from fruiting altogether.
deer luv persimmons too!
https://www.southernstates.com/artic...ting-deer.aspx
I live in North Alabama and certain varieties do well up here as well as Southern Middle Tennessee where I hunt. Arkansas Black hold their fruit into December depending on weather but deer seem to like the ones that have been laying on the ground the longest. I hunt some property where they are planted but I can't get them to survive on my place. Deer will eat through the base of a plastic tree protector and chew the bark off of them and strip the leaves off when the emerge out the top.
Apples as a food source would certainly succeed if they were planted the same way that many people plant corn for the deer. They top seed the plots with corn, sometimes on a daily basis, but it never gets the chance to sprout since the deer and turkeys eat it all up. It can be discouraging to go out day after day and see that you will have to re-plant your corn again.
I like Haywire's idea of "top-seeding" apple groves!
For fruit trees planted in conjunction with a food plot - I like pear and persimmon.
I had the idea to plant apple trees on my property in Michigan, and I started out with 20-30$ trees... Only to lose most of them to deer the first year. Now I stratify and plant my own apple seeds, grow them in plastic pots and plant about a hundred every fall. Some of them do survive, and in the better locations I make cages for them with t posts and woven wire fence. In good soil with adequate moisture its possible to get 30" growth in a year. Even though they're open pollinated and not grafted some of the fruit is really good. When I take the cages down I'm expecting that I'll lose all branches below 7'. Lol. I guess planting a hundred or so is like top seeding. I'm expecting to lose most of them. About 15% survive from each year.
I tried a few apples trees in the woods....a couple are still alive, but not doing well due to the canopy from the other trees blocking all day sun......I put a 5ft fence around the saplings but saw any leaves the deer could get to they did.....seemed like a good idea at the time for the small investment.....trees were on clearance.....so I thought why not
In MN., we can buy 25 apple trees, seedlings, for $25 from the ASCS office, Area Soil Conservation Service, a dept. of the DNR. You can buy as many as you want but you must order them in the Fall and they will come in the Spring. Check it out.
Those are usually bare root trees/seedlings. I haven't had a high success rate with those, except for malus bacatta(sp?)- Midwestern crabapple. Small fruit, very hardy.
I planted a 100+ blue spruce and 25 crab apple and the only ones that died were the ones that I killed doing whatever. However, if I want a decent tree for the yard I will buy it at a greenhouse. They are pretty small when they come from the ASCS office.