Anyone here hunt over apple trees with any success?

Our problem is that our land is pretty far away and we haven't the time or the equipment to plant a proper food plot.  If we could get some apple trees going they wouldn't need any maintenance to be a reliable, yearly food source for deer that we could hunt.

Or would this be a colossal waste of time.

They both take some work. Apple trees need to be pruned in order to maximize the apple production.

Food plot ,l just till and plant.
My apple trees keep the deer around this time of year.

If you want good trees then dont look at your local farm supply store. Go to an orchard and get them there, Will be more money but they will produce good fruit.
Also when planting make sure they are protected from deer and other wood line creatures until the trees are big enough

You will need to plant a lot of apple trees to keep up with a deer's appetite.  And what ol3 said you will need to prune every year and I don't know how well they will do way up north.

apples fall way to early to be useful during hunting season, pears are better, far batter, plant a few different types of pear trees

Apples will work............  but

Soils:  They will not tolerate wet soils.

Deer:   They love apple branch tips as much as apple fruit.  Either cage them, or they will never make it to bearing size.  We used 5 foot high roll fencing, cut to about 12 foot lengths, and wired into a cylinder around each tree.  Make about a 3 1/2 foot diameter cage around each tree.

Pollenation: Some are self fertile, many are not.  Make sure you have two varieties, and that the varieties will pollenate each other.  Two trees of different type do not work if the bloom is days apart.

Zone:  DO not buy Home depot/lowes/walmart trees/  Many are wrong for your area.  Find your USDA climate zone, and check the tree.  Close is not good enough.  

Fruit:  Apples mature anytime between mid august and late October.  A type that matures and drops fruit in August won't do you much good if your deer season runs October.

root stock.  Don't buy dwarfing.  Dwarf trees will be largely within reach of deer suffering much damage.  They often do not do well wth competing grass nd weeds.  Old school standard root stocks make for hardier full size trees, more fruit, less issues with grass and weeds.

If you want info, try St Lawrence Nurseries  Youll find many answers here.

Apple trees are a considerable amount of work and they may not even pan out, which is pretty risky considering the start up investment for them.

I would grow clover. It's easy to grow and requires little maintenance and it comes back up to 4-5 years in a row.

In Wisconsin the apples will probably fall before season starts.  If you are going to plant apple trees for wildlife I would suggest American Crab Apple.

We have apple trees on a neighbors property. They are all on the ground now and the deer are coming in. But they will only be around for a few more days so it depends on timing.

Has anyone ever tried fig trees for deer?

They seem to grow really well here, require no maintenance, and get loaded with fruit this time of year.

What is required to start up a cover plot?

Throw and grow is some good stuff. You don't really need to do anything to the ground other than clear it to bare soil. You can use lime and fertilizers and all the other nonsense but it isn't necessary. Just clean the area you want down to bare soil spread the throw and grow around and it will pop up a little food plot until you can get a tractor to make a large food plot.

This season I spent most of my time laying in covering an old apple tree on my parents property. It was like a magnet for deer, the first morning I laid in I had eyes on six does that came in about half an hour apart. I held of on them because I was waiting on the buck to show up, which he never did. Every afternoon I would shake some if the apples that were still in the tree to the ground and every morning they were gone. The deer seemed to be coming in after dark and eating them. Highly recommend an apple tree.

Nothing to serious. First kill off all the existing plants and weeds that are covering the field you want to put in clover. You can do this by either a controlled burn or using herbicides. Then Test the soil to see how acidic the ground is. Based off the numbers you receive that will help you understand how much lime and fertilizer you need to put down on the ground to balance out your soils PH levels to help your clover grow. Once that's figured out I use a disk (since I don't have a full blown tiller) and tear up the ground as much as possible. Then I'll fertilize and lime the field, run the disk back over that and then seed it with the clover. Clover doesn't need to be deep in the soil. Just a 1/4 inch or so. The important thing is seed to soil contact. How you achieve this is by using a roller that pads the field down by rolling over it multiple times. Since I don't have a roller we jus run over the field multiple times with a four wheeler and tractor to ensure the seeds are pressed down into the soil. Then hope for rain.... Or if you're smart you will do all this right before the rain comes in. It sounds like a lot, but really depending on The field size and equipment it's really only a half days work.

The first year it will be a little weak and probably disappointing. That's because the clover hasn't become established in the soil. Give it time and do your best to keep the weeds under control. You can do this by using a herbicide that will keep the clover alive and just kill the weeds that grow in it or by just simply cutting the clover and weeds once it gets up to about Knee/shin hight.

If done right and kept under control from weeds it will produce thick clover that most animals will love for 4-5 years.
I recommend pure trophy clover by fridige forage. It's some quality seeds and they will damn near grow anywhere.
http://www.frigidforage.com/pure-trophy-clover/

Apple trees are a great draw for deer up there, especially during bow season, but they take a few years to start producing. They peter out before rifle season usually. We utilize areas where the apples are heavy and have great luck there, but food plots are a more immediate solution. There are folks up there who specialize in making food plots for those who don't have the time/equipment to do it themselves, so that might be an option for next year.  

Back on the apples.  I always thought Apple trees will drop fruit from late september through October and sometimes even later which would be perfect for early season bow hunting.

Why not graft late dropping persimmon varieties?

Depends on the variety of apple, some ripen early, some ripen late.  Some ripe apples fall off the branches easier than others.

That's why I recommended the American Crab Apple.  A little hard to find but they are hardy, produce tons of fruit and drop it over a long time.

There are summer, fall, and winter apples. Check out a place like Fedco Trees for detailed information and good, hearty stock. Pick a good mix and you should be all set.

Have you thought about Pear trees instead of Apple trees.   The Pears don’t need as much care, plant, water a bit and then forget about.  Deer love Pears too.  I planted Pears, Crab Apples and Persimmon’s.   Where I have feeder we still cut for hay so planting a food plot is out of the question.   This is where I got some of my trees from.   http://www.nativnurseries.com/t-home.aspx

Wolf

Article I provided the info for: http://www.clarionledger.com/story/sports/outdoors/2014/10/11/grafting-extends-persimmon-production/17136101/

Let's try this again....  Pears, Persimmons, Plums, Apples, Oranges, Bananas, coconuts, whatever, a lot of things can be successfully used to feed and attract deer.  The major issue is timing...

If all you want to do is feed deer, have at it and plant any fruit you want to.  However, if you want to attract deer during hunting season, then your fruiting trees must still bear fruit up to and into your scheduled season.  Around here all variety of pears I am aware of mature and bear mid to late summer.  If your deer season is August, then pears will work great.  Pears that drop in August are useless for your Nov season.

Likewise, apples must be timed.  I have norda apples and these bear late summer.  Apples that mature and drop to the ground in very early September, like Norda, Ginger Gold and others, work great as deer attractors, but all those apples are rotted or eaten a full four or five weeks before the regular rifle season opens here.  These varieties are useless as a hunting season food crop.

Father in Law ran a commercial orchard for a good sixty years.  His gun season started third week of November.  All the gingergold orchards were empty of deer.  Those apple were long gone, so they were useless as a hunting season attractor.  Wealhy's dropped two or three weeks late, and would work for his archery season. However, the Mutsu's - also known as Crispin - hung well until mid November, with lots of freshly fallen apples to feed deer smack dap into gun season.  With 90 acres of apples, and a good dozen different varieties, wanna guess which apples we were sitting in  opening morning???

Plant whatever will grow in your climate and soils (beware -  all apples and pears HATE wet feet.  They will NOT thrive in wet soils).  But be careful to 'time' fruit maturity and your scheduled hunting season or your are wasting time and money.  (Also be careful with big box retailers.  All of them sell trees totally inappropriate for the local zone.  I've seen zone 6 cherries and peaches sold here in zone 3, where there is ZERO chance of survival).

Fro