Most oaks take like 20 years before dropping nuts, but i saw hybrids for sale that are supposed to be quicker. When planting your deer trees don’t forget that you can plant perennials like clover amoung the trees.
Other than food sources… you might try adding a mineral salt lick to attract deer.
These 5 bucks were visiting a salt lick in the edge of my field just past the back yard.
TNHunter
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Salt licks are used by does to improve lactation and bucks for antler growth. Deer will use them from late spring to early fall. I don’t get many coming to the lick in the fall. I mix 50# dried molasses, 100# trace mineral salt, 50# Dical phosphate 50# ice cream salt and a buck of luck buck for aroma. I put out 50# a month from April to august plus a selenium salt block.
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I put in a mix of white clovers. I sow 100#/A winter rye in the fall. Overseed white clover to keep full. Because of deer pressure everything else has been a waste of time and money. I mow twice a year. Early summer to knock down the rye and annual weeds and August to control perennial weeds. After the August mow I spray clethodim to control Japanese stilitgrass.
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We have a feeder with corn year round, a salt lick, and two bio plots. Not exactly sure what we plant each year. I was planning and placing the trees around the property. Our feeder and bio fields are kind of located near the buildings.
I only spread corn from August to December. Only enough to get them to try to have a pattern. Corn is not really healthy it’s like ice cream for us. If my property was easier to access (it’s 2 1/2 hours away) I would switch to protein feed from December to March green up. March to mid August there is copious browse.
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Bur oak seedlings I’ve planted have grown the most rapidly of any trees I’ve planted in the past 30 years, and most have been bearing acorns by 6-8 yrs, with heavy crops, annually, by 10 yrs.
Hard to beat pears & persimmons as low/no care soft mast sources.
I usually plant a mix of wheat, rye, and annual ryegrass in winter foodplots to concentrate the hooved rats for easier. harvest.
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Where did you source the burr oak seedlings? I am also thinking about some dwarf chinkapin oak since they are quicker to produce acorns.
Burnt Ridge has Bur Oak seedlings for $16.50 each.
I brought a half-dozen bur oak seedlings from MO, grown from acorns i collected on the farm we lived on, when we moved to KY 30 yrs ago, and have collected more from across its range from TX to Manitoba, courtesy of friends around the country.
For the last 30+ yrs, I’ve grown my own, from bearing trees here on the farm, mostly from my ‘Mid-MO #1’ selection which has very low tannin levels and produces a fairly large acorn that mostly drops free from its cap.
Buzz Ferver at Perfect Circle Farm sells seedlings and grafts of low-tannin bur oak selections.
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Excellent topic!
Worthy of noting…corn feeders, salt/mineral blocks/bags, manipulation of agricultural crops in non traditional manners=illegal in a great number of states in relation to deer and other wild animal hunting.
Public resources aren’t livestock
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Clearly we are not suggesting hunters shoot off of feeders or hunt in the exact vicinity of corn piles, salt licks, etc… We are just looking for natural ways to attract deer and have humans enjoy fruit. I am not aware of many laws for sportsman outside of Pennsylvania. Are you suggesting it is illegal in other areas of the US to attract wildlife using these methods? Or just that it is illegal to hunt within a specific range of a feeder, lick, etc. ?
Secondarily, would you consider it illegal to hunt within close range of a fruit tree such as a goldrush still holding and dropping apples?
I am asking out of ignorance, not trying to be smart.
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I am indeed suggesting it is illegal to use corn, salt, minerals, or any other attractant that is not naturally occurring to attract deer for the purpose of killing them.
It is also my understanding that other than in certain areas of SE PA the use of bait to attract game for hunting is illegal in PA. Always a good idea to read and understand the game laws in your area.
But, in many states, wildlife habitat improvement practices, in the form of planting hard and soft mast sources (chestnuts/chinkapins, oaks, apples/crabapples, pears, persimmons), forages - wheat, rye, triticale, ryegrass, clovers, vetches, peas, and, yes, corn, is totally legal, and is often coupled with practices such as hinge-cutting, coppicing, etc to promote availability of browse.
Timber-stand management decisions may also involve consideration of wildlife use and benefit. Many of these practices benefit a myriad of wildlife species beyond ‘game’ animals such as deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels, waterfowl.
State Fish and Game divisions in some states lease farmland in Wildlife Management Areas to local farmers, who are required to leave a designated portion of their field crops (corn, soybeans, etc.) standing for use by wildlife.
And, while salt/mineral blocks/feeders and corn piles/feeders, etc. are illegal in some states, they are still allowed in others. I’d certainly recommend investigating what is and is not allowed in your state or locality.
Hunting over a truckload of cull apples, carrots, corn, etc., can be a wildlife health issue - when Michigan was dealing with bovine TB in the wild deer herd, baiting, as was commonly practiced, was a major issue, as it fostered unnatural congregation and close contact of uninfected deer with those actively shedding M.bovis.
Over the past 50 years, I’ve harvested dozens of deer feeding in winter-forage plots, often with a salt lick, and sometimes with standing corn at one edge/end of the plot. And… I won’t say that I have not, on occasion, ‘sweetened the pot’ by spreading some whole shelled corn to add an extra enticement.
I’ve not harvested a buck in over 30 years… I care nothing for an antlered ‘trophy’. If I’m hunting, I’m out for ‘meat’, and I much prefer a young doe to a tough old buck that’s been chasing does in heat all over the countryside and fighting with other bucks.
I put two does in the freezer this season, but those are the first deer I’ve harvested here since 2017, but I’ve been planting foodplots here, yearly, since 2000, and have continually been planting oaks, persimmons, pears, chestnuts, etc. that have primarily been grown as wildlife food sources.
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No suggestions are made with the intent of violating hunting laws. Bait is legal in oh and wv, the only states I have hunted deer.
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No argument here brother. I’ve been hunting and killing deer since the late 70s. I was simply pointing out that some of what was mentioned on this thread would be blatantly illegal in some states. Pretty sure I recommended reading and following the regs for wherever you hunt.
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Right-O.
‘Baiting’ was not legal when I was growing up in AL, though a salt lick was allowed, so far as I know, and all of our foodplots had a salt lick, and the production of two rows of corn at the edge of a plot would sometimes be astronomical, IYKWIMAITYD. Moving to KY, there were no restrictions on baiting… you could dump a truckload of corn or set up automated feeders, and ‘hunt’ over them.
I suspect that the CWD issue will eventually spell a death-knell for ‘baiting’, though. I know that several years back, when some of the first CWD cases were confirmed in several of the northern tier of TN counties, that KY Dept of Fish & Wildlife Resources outlawed baiting of deer in the southern tier of 5 counties bordering the approximate area of the TN CWD area. At some point, I anticipate KDFWR banning ‘baiting’… but enforcing that ban statewide will be hard to do.
Anymore, I don’t really consider myself a ‘hunter’. I’m a ‘harvester’. I’ve been feeding the hooved rats as surely as I did our cow herd… I’m just trying to keep herd numbers under control (and have little impact, truth be told), and keep a supply of healthy venison in the freezer for our consumption.
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Baiting/feeding bans are probably coming to most of the eastern US in the next decade…at least if CWD is determined to be a legit issue for humans.
I lived and hunted (and ate) deer less than 30 miles from the CWD hot zone in southern WI for decades. I still wouldn’t knowingly eat a CWD+ deer. I know other hunters who would.
Life is a crap shoot, eh?
While I am currently using feeders until I can get fruit trees established for soft mast I believe that the use of feeders should eventually be phased out. The contact at feeders is unnatural and increases the rate of disease transmission.
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