i just planted about 30 little apple seeds. my question is; everyone seems to think that deer love apples. so if i planted a bunch of apple trees in my hunting area, would that attract alot of deer to my area? i know this is a plan that would take several years. but i was just curious. its like a giant food plot. could you imagine having bait there all the time? i still would plant food plots, and have a feeder. i just figured this would up my chances.

We put out a bag of apples once. They rotted. The deer had no idea what they were. We did the same thing with horse apples...same result.

I would think if your trees started producing and the deer grew up with the trees, they would probably learn that the apples were edible.

yeah. i just heard of people putting out apples and letting them rott. so i thought. why not just grow them, let them fall off and rott naturally.

Up North one of the best things to do is hunt close to apple trees. I took this one off a apple orchard. Late season hunt looking for dropped apples.

LOL. Did you just cut the cheese?

can we please stay on topic? anyone ever tried this method?

chill, dude. I usedto work on a place that had 200 acres of apple trees and 300 acres of peach trees. both had tons of deer gorging on the fruit. this was in san saba co.

THF threads will usually always involve a little humor here and there. Folks just need to try and accept that. No harm done.

I have thrown out apples and watched deer eat them. I have never grown apples from seeds though. Good luck.

Apples never worked at my place....but they love the chit outta some pears!!!

8 posts and already dictating things...i like it!!

+1

a well guager chunked some apples out, i watched the deer eat em at our place. As far as growin em fromm seeds, a good friend i went to highschool with planted an apple tree from a seed when he was in 3rd grade, he is now a sophomore in college and the tree has produced 3 apples. and that was last year.....

Well tell you the truth,I don't know if I Have enough time left in me to wait for the apple tree to produce apples and the deer find them. Let me see,,,,,,,,how many years would that be?????

i was not trying to dictate. i have just seen how on these posts people will make some comment and then the whole post turns into something that is totally off topic and the original poster gets no answers. however, i appreciate everyones input, and i am only 22 and i hunt on family land so i got lots of time for the trees to grow. i plan on planting other fruit too. possibly pears, oranges, and persimmons.

again i was not trying to be rude or dictate. sorry if i offended anyone.

Once the trees come up, put up an exclusion cage around them. Bucks would love to make rubs out of them.

I don't know squat about apple trees, but I have heard that some trees are grafted as seedlings, and also that highly hybridized seeds do not always produce 'offspring' well. I don't think any of the apple cores I've tossed out have produced any seedlings. Might cost more, but buying proven seedlings from a nursury may be a surer bet in the long run.

Before you waste any time or effort, make sure its a viable seed and is suitable to your area. Or maybe its just a johnny appleseed thing and you throw em out and they grow.

(I had a funny grimmace on my face the whole time I wrote this)

what is the harm in a buck making a rub out of a tree? i would assume it happens to wild trees, and they seem to do just fine. i think it would give the tree some character. does anyone know if the bucks might actually kill a tree by using it as a scrape?

Where are you? Most varieties of apple trees require a certain amount of "freeze days" to produce good fruit. I'm not saying they're all like that, but if you do some research, I'd guess 90% of apples aren't grown in Texas because they can't be. If you just took seeds out of an apple you bought at the store, there's a good chance the tree will never fruit, which is probably what happened with Brandon's buddy.

That said, I've talked to a number of people that said once deer figure apples out, they go absolutely crazy for them. Your theory is sound, but practice might be another story.

well, with all the negative reviews on growing apples in this great state, what fruit trees might yall recommend? preferably that dont take 10+ yrs to produce. i am still going to plant these apple trees. even if all they do is give me a different tree to look at while out there hunting. will oranges attract deer???

Deer are all over behind my place. I have fed them everything you can think of, from avocados to cheerios. They will not touch any citrus. I would look at getting some oak trees. They grow all over Texas, and deer love acorns. You may also want to look into planting some type of perennial food plot. Never done it, but I've heard of people getting up to 5 years out of one planting.

Deer will eat peaches, may want to plant those. I saw some at home depot that were 4 or 5 feet tall for 30 bucks. That is pretty cheap.

I would think apple trees are hard to keep going where they make a decent amount of fruit. Better yet, try different varieties of wild plums or persimmons (black or yellow). Depends of where your land is located as to what will do well there. As an example ckeck (google)out sites such as Womack Nursery at De Leon. They and other nurseries may carry food plot and wildlife trees/seeds. One fruit that I know deer love is jujube. Tastes similar to apple, think it may be Asian date. My mom planted some at the ranch and they did well. The deer really love them. As with all trees in deer and cattle country, put a goat wire or chain link fence around them to get em going. A buck rub on a young tree will kill it same as weed eating too close to a young tree.Girdles the bark. Also plant grape seed along old fence lines. You can get seed along fence lines on highway right of ways where they grow.
Good luck...

No offense taken, yakker. We all give and take purty good on here. You gotta have some thick skin to hang in here. Welcome aboard. BTW, some of the threads that go off on a wild tangent get pretty funny and/or interesting.

I could see that bringing in some but not like a mad deer haven