Recreating a Deer Woods

[Chainsaw]

Thank you Fish. Identifying early versus late apples and early bloom versus late bloom is high on my list for this spring and fall. And I'll be glad to send scions once we figure out which are which. I can know on any given day when and where some of the best apples will be out throughout hunting season. However I'm talking like the hill over there;well that hill may have a hundred trees on it and I don't know which tree is late just that there are two or three late ones there for example. Without having labeled them there are just so many trees that I can't recognize each one.. So yes it will definitely be a project this spring and fall and I'll be glad to cut scions for you from which ever type tree you would like to try and that goes for anyone on the forum as time permits.

I did learn however with daylilies that northern daylilies grow better in the north while and southern daylilies in the north generally grow poorly in the north and many die after a couple of years. I've had no experience with moving plants north to south but hear that it doesn't work out so well either. I'm presuming trees might perform similarly so in cases where the zones are drastically different it will be a learning curve. This zone is officially new zone 5a but since the average low temperature here is minus 25 and sometimes minus 30 or 35 it is unofficially zone 4b.

The plan is to tag the trees in a couple of apple tree areas for early and late blooming trees with their blooming start dates. I need to define what blooming start date looks like and am preparing the tags now on the next rain day.

Steve, Of the few trees I listed I do not really even have a great guess for their apple drop days on most of them. DL1 is an early dropper;I'd guess Sept. 25 to Oct. 20 or a little later, Dr1 I'd guess Oct. 10 to Nov. 10, C1 I'm remembering Oct. 10 to Nov. 8, G1-February and March, G2-Oct. 10 to Nov. 8 along with A1 and A2 except that A1 drops all summer and the deer then ignore them until the rest are eaten. There are some trees that drop through to Nov. 25 but I just haven't gotten thru the snow to those areas yet. That data is all pretty weak--(best recollection of almost no recollection)no records and with so many trees and some of them dropping from Sept. 20 to Nov. 15, I just never filed that info in my mind. This year records will be kept as I need good data in order to make smart crosses between trees.

Chummer, No I won't be grafting any this year for sure. Thank you for the offer though;I'll keep the idea in mind.Collecting apple tree performance data and making a few crosses to get my feet wet will be my major thrust this year apple tree wise.

Its off with me now to release a few.

 

[Osceola]

Chainsaw: Here are a couple I found Saturday. As you can see, I took out the white pine with two large trunks which were blocking sun from the south and a couple small hardwoods growing close to the apples. This is how I left them. Any suggestions?

 

[Chainsaw]

Congratulations on your apple tree find Osceola. The released trees look good. White pines, cedar or spruce lying on the ground here eventually spawn a growth of briers and saplings of some kind so I usually move the pine away from the apple tree so the deer will help keep it "mowed" near the tree and that's if there is (always if and buts)--if I can get in there with the four wheeler or tractor to drag the pine off. Then I like to use the pine as a screen not just as it is now but as it will look when the saplings and briers grow up all around it. If applicable I would put it twenty yards away from the apple tree on the open side to make the deer feel comfortable. If not it could be moved to another screen spot or it could be moved so you can sneak behind it to get in your stand or to guide the deer by your stand.

When possible it is nice to "get paid twice" for each task accomplished ie, once by releasing the apple tree, once by providing browse (freshly dropped pine)to deer(may be a week late on that-don't know), and once by providing a steering tree to steer the deer near your stand or simply to provide screening by moving the pine tree a bit.

On the tree release it is nice if the branches from one do not touch the other and this is where I'll sometimes make a pruning cut which is really just better releasing one apple tree from another. Often I just wait a year to see which branch performs the best or blocks the other tree the least to determine which to cut. There is no rush here;with a little luck those apple trees will be there for a very long time. I can't tell by the picture if there are other non-apple trees mixed in with the apple tree. If so I'd cut them down; they probably won't stop wind as they are small and of no use. Cutting the pines will give the apples the wind test;usually they pass and don't blow over.

I do spray the stumps of buckthorn, multi flora rose and other invasives and grapevines that may have been cut down with 50/50 mix of roundup. Used to use less but did not always kill so I upped it. Be careful about getting roundup on an apple tree I usually hold my plastic chainsaw blade cover along side of the stump being sprayed if there is risk of over spraying to the tree. Have never used Tordon but most science based papers list that as very effective. I just have no experience with it so I don't know from experience if it might have any negative effect on non-target trees nearby.

You had an easy productive couple of cuts to release those two trees and being so open they should respond quickly. The ones released here today were buried in grapevines and buckthorn and were really tough. It took a tank of gas to release 4 trees--2 nice ones and 2 very weak ones--tough morning! Of course though killing a few invasives also counts as something more done so sort of paid twice-maybe not so tough of a morning!

 

[shedder]

I was leaving the agra tech library today and saw this in the new book bin.
A good book with pix and descriptions of near 200 apples.
Lots of good info and some neat trivia like

That's right, action icon, Rambo, was named after a fruit. Oh, the irony.

https://www.amazon.com/Apples-North...92081&sr=1-1&keywords=apples+of+north+america

more info

One of his references was Apples of new york 1905.which is free online to read or download.

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=apples+of+new+york+1905

https://archive.org/details/applesofnewyork02beac

 

[Chainsaw]

Thanks Shedder,
It is so great that there are quite a few excellent books about the old apple trees. And as you say how ironic that Rambo was named after the Rambo apple tree. Never would have imagined it! How important the old wild apple tree really is to our history is incredible. With that aside though I think the wild apple tree is extremely important to the deer on this property and as huge a presence the apple is here it will be made even more huge if my efforts are successful.

 

[Native Hunter]

Great information on your descriptions and estimated drop times Dave. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

[Chainsaw]

Great information on your descriptions and estimated drop times Dave. Thanks so much for sharing.

Thanks Steve, glad you are following this thread. By showing some of my early picks for the top trees on this property I wanted everyone to see that what appear to be some of the best out of a couple of thousand trees looks no different than the apple trees on others properties. What makes a tree truly great tree ie; high apple production, great tasting apples to the deer, drop times, bloom times, shelf life sitting on the ground and any number of distinct characteristics is in the gene pools of some of the trees on all of our properties. And we each have the power within us to create trees that will serve the deer population better than the trees currently offered on the open market or on each of our properties today. Likely the same can be said for pears and other fruit trees. We can collectively make better trees for the deer than what is present today.

Lets say that we determine that tree C1 pictured on post 178 is in fact a superior deer tree. It has the obvious strengths of extreme longevity which indicates resistance to diseases of this area as well as the ability to cope well and live thru temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees that I have witnessed. Its self-pruned shape is excellent for holding a lot of apple weight and it is open to the west winds and having withstood those tremendous winds for so long shows it must have excellent rooting structure. Its tall height and very large crown circumference makes it dominate many of the trees that have tried to take away sun, space and nutrients from it. All of these characteristics and many more are determined of course simply by its genes.

If we were to cross C1 with every tree on the property some of the resultant offspring trees would produce a partial version of themselves with some of C1's better characteristics mixed in. Crossing in both directions would create still more versions with each different from each other. Stacking the deck by just crossing C1 with other trees that had similar characteristics would likely produce a higher percentage of trees with the desired characteristics. Finding a tree like C1 on this property and crossing it with C1 would have yet a stronger chance of creating more trees with those desired characteristics due to the trees likely being related already and thus have some similar genes already in their makeup.

Expanding our area from which we acquire the better genes of the neighborhood we can use genes from other peoples best on their properties trees. For example, Chummer can take pollen off of C1 and pollinate his best tree with it and his best can pollinate the best here. Because we are not in competition with each other we can effectively have our pick of the best pollen out of thousands of acres versus just from our own properties. Daylily hobbyists do this all the time. With the speedy and reliable mail service of the day some daylily pollen is even mailed from one state to another. Might this work for apples as well? I don't know but it may. And if there is a super tree growing somewhere in town getting permission to use its pollen should be very doable.

The very best apple varieties of today were created by people crossing trees aimed at a different purpose than feeding wild deer so they likely are not as a group the best trees to grow on ones property for the sole purpose of feeding deer. Anyone still reading this far-Thank You. I realize nothing here is scientific but very little science is needed to make headway on this.

 

[Native Hunter]

Thanks Steve, glad you are following this thread. By showing some of my early picks for the top trees on this property I wanted everyone to see that what appear to be some of the best out of a couple of thousand trees looks no different than the apple trees on others properties. What makes a tree truly great tree ie; high apple production, great tasting apples to the deer, drop times, bloom times, shelf life sitting on the ground and any number of distinct characteristics is in the gene pools of some of the trees on all of our properties. And we each have the power within us to create trees that will serve the deer population better than the trees currently offered on the open market or on each of our properties today. Likely the same can be said for pears and other fruit trees. We can collectively make better trees for the deer than what is present today.

Lets say that we determine that tree C1 pictured on post 178 is in fact a superior deer tree. It has the obvious strengths of extreme longevity which indicates resistance to diseases of this area as well as the ability to cope well and live thru temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees that I have witnessed. Its self-pruned shape is excellent for holding a lot of apple weight and it is open to the west winds and having withstood those tremendous winds for so long shows it must have excellent rooting structure. Its tall height and very large crown circumference makes it dominate many of the trees that have tried to take away sun, space and nutrients from it. All of these characteristics and many more are determined of course simply by its genes.

If we were to cross C1 with every tree on the property some of the resultant offspring trees would produce a partial version of themselves with some of C1's better characteristics mixed in. Crossing in both directions would create still more versions with each different from each other. Stacking the deck by just crossing C1 with other trees that had similar characteristics would likely produce a higher percentage of trees with the desired characteristics. Finding a tree like C1 on this property and crossing it with C1 would have yet a stronger chance of creating more trees with those desired characteristics due to the trees likely being related already and thus have some similar genes already in their makeup.

Expanding our area from which we acquire the better genes of the neighborhood we can use genes from other peoples best on their properties trees. For example, Chummer can take pollen off of C1 and pollinate his best tree with it and his best can pollinate the best here. Because we are not in competition with each other we can effectively have our pick of the best pollen out of thousands of acres versus just from our own properties. Daylily hobbyists do this all the time. With the speedy and reliable mail service of the day some daylily pollen is even mailed from one state to another. Might this work for apples as well? I don't know but it may. And if there is a super tree growing somewhere in town getting permission to use its pollen should be very doable.

The very best apple varieties of today were created by people crossing trees aimed at a different purpose than feeding wild deer so they likely are not as a group the best trees to grow on ones property for the sole purpose of feeding deer. Anyone still reading this far-Thank You. I realize nothing here is scientific but very little science is needed to make headway on this.

Dave, it really is much like any other tree breeding program - except that in this case you are trying to produce trees with the best attributes for properties being managed primarily for deer. To me, it is an attempt to take the best wild "deer trees" to the next level, which I see as a worthy goal.

I love this thread for a lot of reasons....

 

[Chainsaw]

Dave, it really is much like any other tree breeding program - except that in this case you are trying to produce trees with the best attributes for properties being managed primarily for deer. To me, it is an attempt to take the best wild "deer trees" to the next level, which I see as a worthy goal.

I love this thread for a lot of reasons....

Thank Steve, You've nailed it in 1/20 of the words it took me. To take the best wild "deer trees" to the next level is exactly what I am trying to do. The idea and motivation was really sparked and incubated through all of the people on this forum and especially those who have been interacting with and encouraging me on this Recreating the Deer Woods thread.

Now that the mission of taking the best wild deer trees to the next level is defined, it is exciting to jump ahead to making it work. Currently I'm thinking of two different options and will test both out this summer to begin the learning curve.

Option 1 is to cross all of the best trees as appropriate to produce seeds which would then be planted and nurtured until they could survive on their own.
Option 2 would be to clone the top 1% of the 2,000 released apple trees(twenty trees) showing the best deer tree characteristics. Cloning could be done thru cuttings. Being all original mother trees each cutting should grow as a duplicate of the mother tree. Producing enough of the cloned trees would sufficiently produce enough cloned preferred trees where natural reproduction between the preferred trees could then occur.
Option 3 would be doing both option 1 and 2.
Utilizing pollen or cuttings from others best mother trees is not to be left out; Using each others resources helps all of us. Input from you guys is really appreciated.

The end result here will not be an orchard so to speak but really a mixed forest heavily populated in apple trees that are either clones or direct descendants of carefully chosen individual wild trees that have shown to be better than 99% of the wild apple trees that are here today. Clearly though there is a lot more work to planning this out with the definition of the best deer trees being a very high priority.

Yikes this is exciting times 10!

 

[Chummer]

I will have around 60 rootstock planted in thier final place this year. They will be ready for grafting next year if you want any practice

 

[Chainsaw]

I will have around 60 rootstock planted in thier final place this year. They will be ready for grafting next year if you want any practice

Thank you Jeremy, I appreciate the offer. I would be glad to help you do some grafting though if you wanted to (haven't done any but I can be taught to do new stuff still). But for me I'm sold on creating better apple trees that can be reproduced in their entirety as well as reproduce themselves. We will be aiming at creating better apple trees, better apple tree woods and not just better apples.
I will be rooting scion cuttings here versus grafting them; If you would like me to save a few for your place just let me know. I'm still collecting them but the window seems to be getting close to closing with all of this warm weather both here and on its way.

I'm off to the apple tree tops now before the thunderstorms roll in.

 

[Chummer]

I didn't think you could root cuttings. I have not tried grafting yet either. I ordered all my supplies and have been watching videos. I want to try changing over a few of the native trees that do not produce apples.

 

[Chainsaw]

I didn't think you could root cuttings. I have not tried grafting yet either. I ordered all my supplies and have been watching videos. I want to try changing over a few of the native trees that do not produce apples.

Got rained out temporarily--will wait it out and get out again. You are correct--you can't successfully do root cuttings of modern apples because for the most part the trees they come from are inferior and likely wouldn't survive on their own without the benefit of the root stock used to keep it alive. With daylilies some people crossed for the best blooms as their only criteria and I saw firsthand that many of the plants became less than hardy; I believe the same thing happened to modern apples for the most part. While crossing just for sellable apples the hardiness and attributes associated with the tree part were largely ignored. Grafting onto hardier root stock got them out of the dilemma of weak mother trees as well as provided the luxury of sizing the tree to their space and picking needs.

By rooting cuttings from the wild apple trees that have shown to be extra hardy we will be duplicating/cloning the particular tree the cutting came from so success is more likely. I have no idea on the success rate of how many will root and survive but I'll try to root two or three hundred and we'll see what it brings.

 

[shedder]

Thank Steve, You've nailed it in 1/20 of the words it took me. To take the best wild "deer trees" to the next level is exactly what I am trying to do. The idea and motivation was really sparked and incubated through all of the people on this forum and especially those who have been interacting with and encouraging me on this Recreating the Deer Woods thread.

Now that the mission of taking the best wild deer trees to the next level is defined, it is exciting to jump ahead to making it work. Currently I'm thinking of two different options and will test both out this summer to begin the learning curve.

Option 1 is to cross all of the best trees as appropriate to produce seeds which would then be planted and nurtured until they could survive on their own.
Option 2 would be to clone the top 1% of the 2,000 released apple trees(twenty trees) showing the best deer tree characteristics. Cloning could be done thru cuttings. Being all original mother trees each cutting should grow as a duplicate of the mother tree. Producing enough of the cloned trees would sufficiently produce enough cloned preferred trees where natural reproduction between the preferred trees could then occur.
Option 3 would be doing both option 1 and 2.
Utilizing pollen or cuttings from others best mother trees is not to be left out; Using each others resources helps all of us. Input from you guys is really appreciated.

The end result here will not be an orchard so to speak but really a mixed forest heavily populated in apple trees that are either clones or direct descendants of carefully chosen individual wild trees that have shown to be better than 99% of the wild apple trees that are here today. Clearly though there is a lot more work to planning this out with the definition of the best deer trees being a very high priority.

Yikes this is exciting times 10!

From my reading in the above, you might be trying to recreate the wheel with a low chance of success. Heritage apples already seem to have every combination of characteristic, suitable for deer.

Some are self fertile, some are true to seed, some hang late, some will grow in Florida, some will have 25% sugar vs the more common 12%, some will be disease resistant, and so on.

I am no expert but I think there is so much apple breeding research already that you may want to dig deep in that before running long expensive experiments.

http://bighorsecreekfarm.com/master-variety-list/

This Master Variety List seems to have a lot of the same info that was in the book. It is a place to start to get a feel the enormous variety available. "The American apple has plummeted from a rich diversity of 16,000 varieties in the late 1800s to about 3,000. "

source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/garden/03garden.html


https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=lee+calhoun+apples&*

more info above on "lee calhoun apples"

Apparently, a lot of these varieties are available for grafting already.

http://www.centuryfarmorchards.com/niche/wildlife.html

Here is a list broken down by month.

This subject is much bigger than I imagined but it is good to see the renewed interest in old apples.

 

[shedder]

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=john+bunker+apples&*
john bunker apples

https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=tom+burford+apples&*
tom burford apples

A couple of more names in the heritage apple movement.

 

[Chummer]

Got rained out temporarily--will wait it out and get out again. You are correct--you can't successfully do root cuttings of modern apples because for the most part the trees they come from are inferior and likely wouldn't survive on their own without the benefit of the root stock used to keep it alive. With daylilies some people crossed for the best blooms as their only criteria and I saw firsthand that many of the plants became less than hardy; I believe the same thing happened to modern apples for the most part. While crossing just for sellable apples the hardiness and attributes associated with the tree part were largely ignored. Grafting onto hardier root stock got them out of the dilemma of weak mother trees as well as provided the luxury of sizing the tree to their space and picking needs.

By rooting cuttings from the wild apple trees that have shown to be extra hardy we will be duplicating/cloning the particular tree the cutting came from so success is more likely. I have no idea on the success rate of how many will root and survive but I'll try to root two or three hundred and we'll see what it brings.

If that works it sure would give me some nice options.

 

[Chainsaw]

If that works it sure would give me some nice options.

Here is a single link of many that pop up on a google search of growing apples by rooting cuttings.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/grow-apple-tree-cutting-63550.html

So it looks like we won't have much trouble making it work;it will just take us a few tries to get it down to the better way for us. If you need more cuttings from different trees just give me a call and we'll cut a bunch. It goes quickly, I cut 130 this morning in about an hour.

 

[Chainsaw]

From my reading in the above, you might be trying to recreate the wheel with a low chance of success. Heritage apples already seem to have every combination of characteristic, suitable for deer.

Some are self fertile, some are true to seed, some hang late, some will grow in Florida, some will have 25% sugar vs the more common 12%, some will be disease resistant, and so on.

I am no expert but I think there is so much apple breeding research already that you may want to dig deep in that before running long expensive experiments.

http://bighorsecreekfarm.com/master-variety-list/

This Master Variety List seems to have a lot of the same info that was in the book. It is a place to start to get a feel the enormous variety available. "The American apple has plummeted from a rich diversity of 16,000 varieties in the late 1800s to about 3,000. "

source http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/garden/03garden.html


https://www.google.ca/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=lee+calhoun+apples&*

more info above on "lee calhoun apples"

Apparently, a lot of these varieties are available for grafting already.

http://www.centuryfarmorchards.com/niche/wildlife.html

Here is a list broken down by month.

This subject is much bigger than I imagined but it is good to see the renewed interest in old apples.

Thank you Shedder for the links and the be careful warning that it may not work and be very costly. I am aware of the huge # of apple varieties already available to purchase. Some of those are no doubt great apples that will grow to perfection with no intervention once well started. Many of them wouldn't even get past the first season here on their original rootstock.
Just as an example look at what the apple trees here have adapted to here regarding Cedar Apple Rust. They all are infected by it but few show any negative signs of it.





Each of the trees growing on this property today have been weeded out to handle our cold temperature extremes, our wind extremes, our cedar rust extremes, competition from our invasives here and whatever other negative factors this locale throws at the apple trees. They are as a group naturally superior growing trees for this exact locale;it doesn't mean some named variety trees might not grow even better but just that many of the trees here are proven to grow well here already.

The criteria for the deer trees here is much different than the criteria for growing apple varieties for people. For the deer there are no bad varieties of apples;Just about every single apple gets eaten. There are however some tree varieties unnamed but varieties none the less that stand out above all the other trees here and no where in the world can this be seen as it relates to this property and its idiosyncrasies as here. I have no interest in naming apples or making trees to sell--only to create the most amount of the best apple trees that I can to meet or exceed the deer herds appetite for apples.

Here is an example of a deer criteria for some of the trees that will be multiplied here. The tree must be shaped so that it can hold apples thru January even when covered in snow and and naturally hold and release those apples in February. Of course it needs to be cold hardy, well rooted to withstand heavy winds with a water table sometimes down only one ft., and disease resistance to the diseases prevalent to this location. I know of a good handful of trees here that fit this bill already. Crossing those together and creating seeds that produced like trees would be the optimum, simply cloning those five varieties thru rooting cuttings of those trees would be a guarantee but the second choice method. I doubt that very many varieties of apple trees are grown to not drop apples until February are out there being grown for market that will also slip into the idiosyncrasies of this environment.

So success for that one criteria appears to be a slam dunk. That is an extreme criteria but you get the idea. We are not talking about creating apples for pies or cider or whatever but simply creating and multiplying trees from the very best already here and proven to do well here with best being those that meet our criteria for the best trees. The APPLE flavor, shape, color, texture, inside storage life,use for cider,baking or dessert is not in the criteria. In fact the APPLE really is secondary;its the attributes and performance trees we are focusing on. That's the difference.
Additionally the very best trees for this property will likely not be the very best trees for properties even as close as fifty miles from here;they w ill have their own unique growing conditions, challenges and needs.

Shedder, I appreciate your openess and all of the information and inspiration you have given me but am very comfortable with this concept. Thank you for your inputs and discussions though.

 

[shedder]

Here is an example of a deer criteria for some of the trees that will be multiplied here. The tree must be shaped so that it can hold apples thru January even when covered in snow and and naturally hold and release those apples in February.

I read somewhere that apples that stay on trees that late are ones that do not fully finish the growth cycle. Still green, in other words, but it was not explained as such. Confirmation may be available from someone that knows apples.

 

[Chainsaw]

I read somewhere that apples that stay on trees that late are ones that do not fully finish the growth cycle. Still green, in other words, but it was not explained as such. Confirmation may be available from someone that knows apples.

That is what a cider apple grower I met with last week told me as well that some trees don't ripen before the growing stops. I have seen it repeated here on a couple of trees so I'm hoping it is a tree characteristic versus an odd year or two.