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TNlandowner

TNlandowner

Well-Known Member
TNDeer Supporter
Joined
Mar 28, 2006
Messages
1,548
Location
Carroll County
Deer are bedding near our Chestnut trees and quickly eat every nut that falls.
Persimmon trees are dropping orange fruit that won't last a day...
Our apple and pears have all been eaten...
The two storms germinated our food plots that are doing well.

Our acorn crop is very poor...

So happy we planted a variety of trees to keep the deer on our farm.

Why we plant Chestnut trees.webp
PICT0056.webp
Alpha doe.webp
 
Growing up in rural southern KY, we had a grove of three Chinese Chestnuts in our front yard. Every year, the deer would just go crazy over them. They would stand up on their hind legs and try to kick more nuts of the trees with their front hooves. Really sold me on Chesnuts as an attractant/food source.
 
We have pears dropping, apples are long gone. Persimmon trees around the property were here when I bought the place, but they dropped most of their fruit early due to drought/stress. I need to try growing some chestnut trees.

That's a nice buck, good luck on him.
 
DoubleRidge said:
Sounds like you have some great diversity on your property. We have added some sawtooth and dunstan chestnut and hope to add some fruit trees in the future. Thanks for the motivation!
Click to expand...
You will be so happy for the effort! After two years of drought, we observed our first Sawtooth acorn failure this year.

We went a bit over-board when QDM got popular in the early 2000s. In 2013 we did a wildlife focused select cut to remove mixed hardwoods and pines. Our native oaks have really expanded since then. We opened up 11 fields for planting food plots. We've planted over 200 Sawtooths, 100 Nutall oaks, 12 Dwarf Chinkapin, 50+ native plums, 20 Pecan trees, 3 Chinese and over 50 Dunstan Chestnuts (add 12 or more each winter), apples, and pears, I actually have to mow persimmon seedlings that sprout up in fields every year. The persimmon trees are so easy to grow in our area.

My hair turned grey watching all these projects become successful. It has been a wonderful, stress-relieving hobby!
 
backyardtndeer said:
We have pears dropping, apples are long gone. Persimmon trees around the property were here when I bought the place, but they dropped most of their fruit early due to drought/stress. I need to try growing some chestnut trees.

That's a nice buck, good luck on him.
Click to expand...
Thank you, I'm hoping to put my teenage son in place to harvest that buck. My only "planned" target this year is an older drop tine buck.
 
TNlandowner said:
You will be so happy for the effort! After two years of drought, we observed our first Sawtooth acorn failure this year.

We went a bit over-board when QDM got popular in the early 2000s. In 2013 we did a wildlife focused select cut to remove mixed hardwoods and pines. Our native oaks have really expanded since then. We opened up 11 fields for planting food plots. We've planted over 200 Sawtooths, 100 Nutall oaks, 12 Dwarf Chinkapin, 50+ native plums, 20 Pecan trees, 3 Chinese and over 50 Dunstan Chestnuts (add 12 or more each winter), apples, and pears, I actually have to mow persimmon seedlings that sprout up in fields every year. The persimmon trees are so easy to grow in our area.

My hair turned grey watching all these projects become successful. It has been a wonderful, stress-relieving hobby!
Click to expand...
Have you noticed the deer preferring one type of those trees over the others?
 
TNlandowner said:
You will be so happy for the effort! After two years of drought, we observed our first Sawtooth acorn failure this year.

We went a bit over-board when QDM got popular in the early 2000s. In 2013 we did a wildlife focused select cut to remove mixed hardwoods and pines. Our native oaks have really expanded since then. We opened up 11 fields for planting food plots. We've planted over 200 Sawtooths, 100 Nutall oaks, 12 Dwarf Chinkapin, 50+ native plums, 20 Pecan trees, 3 Chinese and over 50 Dunstan Chestnuts (add 12 or more each winter), apples, and pears, I actually have to mow persimmon seedlings that sprout up in fields every year. The persimmon trees are so easy to grow in our area.

My hair turned grey watching all these projects become successful. It has been a wonderful, stress-relieving hobby!
Click to expand...
Sounds awesome! We are allot earlier in the journey than you but we're traveling similar paths...in 2019 we did a forest stand improvement project working with our Forester. Released several white and red oaks and have since planted 45 sawtooth seedlings. Currently have 70+ sawtooth in air prune boxes along with a few native persimmon seedlings. Hope to transplant them all this fall. We have 5 dunstan chestnut that are starting to produce and a few Chinese Chestnut seedlings...have chestnuts in the fridge now along with some chickasaw plum seeds a buddy gave me....hes found a solid stand of chickasaw plum with several small seedlings in the area...wondering if I can dig them up in the winter and transplant them? Would like to get them started. Eventually I hope to add pear and apple to the property, just hadnt made that investment yet...I need to get busy...as they say...the best day to plant a tree is yesterday.
 
lafn96 said:
Have you noticed the deer preferring one type of those trees over the others:
Click to expand...

Our observed deer preferred hard mast choice is:
1. Chestnuts (both Dunstan and Chinese) - They seem to drop in October.
2. Acorns: White oak - Post oak (White oak family) - Sawtooth - Red oaks (southern first then the northern variety in late December when other acorns are gone)
* Our Nutall oaks (type of red oak) are 15 years old and haven't produced acorns yet.

As for fruit: they drop at different times. Native plums - apples - pears - then persimmons. We also have a few colonies of paw paw, but they don't make a lot of fruit. For hunting purposes, I would prioritize planting native persimmons. Our variety will drop fruit October - January.

The deer hammer what ever fruit hits the ground like it is candy.
 

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