If you're planting them for deer, don't fence them and start shooting them the first year. Those bud tips are what they want and it's just like dope to them. Have a deer problem in my young pecan orchard with them eating the bud tips. Gonna get a permit this year and start shooting them on site.

What might not have been mentioned, if you don't get a lot of rain, your going to want to dump 5 gallons of water on each tree once a week the first year.

If you want a deer magnet, plant the disease resistant type of chestnut tree. They will eventually produce a LOT more poundage of food that deer love.

Crab apple trees are good for deer, small apples, easy to get in their mouth.

Well I guess it's good I asked some questions. There is a whole lot of things i didnt know. There is a reputable nursery where I live I may see what they have. I didnt know deer were attracted to crabapples i have a tree in my yard. I have heard that deer love chestnuts and i am thinking of planting them too.

There is some thing that is over look, make sure you use fence that the rabbits will not get in to feed on the young trees. Also check the type of apple it is , there is some that is self pollinate they do not need another one , But there is some that do need one. If it is just for deer you can use root stock trees for them if it dose not matter the type of apple. Like stated crabapple is the best since it is easy on them to get at and eat. You could plant a crab and a regular apple tree. There is 3 type of trees grow to be, Dwarf, Semi Dwarf ,standard that is full grown .It depend on how high you want your trees to be .

They need to CROSS pollinate.For every 5 Cortlands I planted,,I threw in one Mackintosh.They are loaded with apples most years.

So the 8000 trees we planted the last 3 days won't make it?? Only 3000 more to go this week, hope they make it!

Even in our orchards the 4' trees we are planting now wont produce for 2 years. These are trellis trained and babied. As everyone says fence and tube or at least wrap, keep the low branches trimmed out of reach of tongues and antlers.
Good old school apples like Braeburns do good for deer, fairly frost hardy and easy pruners.

The deer here rub every sapling after they eat the buds.

Deer much prefer pears over apples. Much higher in sugar. I have 32 trees, half pear, half apple. Deer will walk right past the apples to get to the pears.

Larry

We actually own a fruit tree nursery north-east of Topeka. We grow a variety of apples that have good disease resistance and require little to no spraying. You can find apple varieties from early August maturity to late November. Fencing is a must in deer country. You can send me a direct message if you would like more info. I dont know how it would go over if I promoted our nursery on the open forum.

NEVER plant them near cedar trees

A local source is a good idea plus a T-man member to boot!

Chris

Not a hard and fast rule. Many are pollen sterile and can't pollinate themselves or any other. Most notably the winesap triploids and relatives. Some are universal donors aka rooster trees and pollinate everyone. Most notable Golden Delicious and relatives. Then you've got bloom times to consider where two compatible cultivars blooming out of sync is no good.

I'll second this as all things are local with apples. Generally apples prefer four seasons with a definite winter. Yet there are some that thrive in the tropics. Plant trees that will thrive under your conditions.

I recommend Chestnut crabapple as a near bullet proof wildlife apple. About a 2-21/2" apple that is very good tasting fresh and also great for cooking, juicing and cider. You can get them dwarf, semi-dwarf and standard to fit the space you have. A UMN apple variety I believe.

As for deer damage..........I have some young trees I set out 2 years ago. The Liberty bloomed this spring.....too early to allow it to set full amount of fruit, but hoped to keep 3 or 4 for a taste taste. Finally warmed up enough for bees to get busy and pollinate it......and that lasted all of 4 or 5 days......deer arrived and nipped every blossom off the entire tree. Came back the next night and nearly stripped 4 trees of all the leaves. The worst was the Lodi.....a green summer apple I grafted from a 50 year old tree at my folks farm. They are doing their dead level best to kill that one. The one below is a Freedom. It was (past tense) fully leafed out......they nearly stripped it....including all the new growth buds. Where is a coyote when you need one?



Although they are not the best eating apples, there are some apples that have been developed for disease resistance and often used for wildlife plantings. Freedom, Liberty and Enterprise to name a few. If you don't have cedar trees near you, Gold Rush is another.....and good to eat too. If you do have cedar trees, forget Gold Rush. Cedar Apple Rust will kill em.

I found a guy near here whose hobby is to collect and evaluate apple varieties. He has over 200 on about 1 acre of ground. What he has discovered is how specific apple varieties are. Apples developed for MN, WI, etc, don't do well in summer heat of MO. He has documented that once temps exceed a certain level, fruit drops off. So they don't work here. I think Honeycrisp was one that did that. Takeaway is to make sure the tree you plant will work for your climate.

I chose to skip dwarfs......as most have to be trellised or will fall over. I use semi-dwarf.

Knowing there are some good nursery guys local is a big help. I use Cummins Nursery in NY. They have a lot of varieties, but more important, they allow you a choice of root stock. Not just for size, but for root stock characteristics. Nobody else I have found does that......including Stark.

Cleaning up I found some volunteers. At first I thought crabs. As I looked around the known crab has reddish white blooms and eating apples have white.
The vols have white. I'm hoping and will see.
The blooms may freeze this week.

That's wild. Exactly the opposite here. Our wild (feral??) pears stay hard and bitter no matter what.

Yup.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_F6W0Op-YF/
" A nearby field containing apple and eastern red-cedar trees provides the perfect conditions for this incredibly unique entity to thrive. Known as Cedar-Apple Rust (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae), this impressive fungus requires both trees to fulfill its biological duties.

In rainy spring weather, jelly-like arms swell and produce certain types of spores that are carried by the wind and eventually germinate on apple hosts. The fungus then matures on apple trees and creates another type of spore that blows in the wind and germinates exclusively on conifer trees, particularly on eastern red-cedar trees. The initial stages of Cedar-Apple Rust eventually appear on eastern red-cedar trees, and the cycle then repeats itself as a forthcoming spring downpour inflates the gelatinous, spore-bearing arms of this itinerant fungus.

In the spring months, both versions of Cedar-Apple Rust — dried and fully-inflated — can be seen. I took these photographs on back-to-back days... one of the days being dry, the other very wet. With plenty of hosts nearby, I suspect that Cedar-Apple Rust will remain a citizen of this field for quite some time!"

I'm so sorry, but yes, you are screwed. Five days ago you would have been fine. But since you violated a hearsay rule-of-thumb, all is lost. So sorry.

I had no clue there was so much involved I raising apples. I figured just dig a hole and put a tree in it. I did know about the deer though almost every small tree in my yard has been rubbed. I also knew they ate the trees. Everybody has given me some good info.