I was just wondering what everyone’s experience was with deer’s preference for different species of trees. Around here they love apples and cherry, but have never touched any of our peach trees and will bite about 1 pear per season and never do it again. I also have a few apricots in our peach orchard that they will nibble, while ignoring all the peach trees. I have no plums planted where we have deer pressure, but will soon so I was wondering what level of protection I’ll need.
When pruning peaches they definitely smell like they have the most cyanide in the wood, but this wouldn’t explain the pear avoidance and cherries certainly have plenty of cyanide as well.
After reading 20 years’ worth of fruit forum postings, it seems that any one deer will eat any one plant in any one year, and that changes randomly from year to year.
So given enough years and deer, they will sample everything.
On a similar note, they prefer any fruit trees with branches they can reach comfortably (as in below 2.5m). I have a problem deciding whether I get more #%$@ed when they bite something off and eat it because they like it, or when they rip it off because they don’t, but it seemed interesting / was in the way. Probably the latter.
I have a fruit tree nursery without fencing. I spray my small trees with repellent at 14 day intervals and let the larger trees be trained by deer to grow above the browse line. 30 years of anecdote with white tails.
What they love is low growth (under 3’), but when it isn’t available I think they like J. plums most of all. Then cherries and next apples. Pears seem to be their least favorite. J. plums they keep ripping branches out of even larger trees when they merely browse other species and usually don’t cause the same destruction.
Also, at other sites I’ve noticed that varieties matter as well. I remember one place with very active fruit tree feeders where I had to put 3 stakes around the cage I made for Mutsu to stop the deer form pushing in the fencing to eat the tree, while every other variety required a single stake with the 10 ft of 5’ tall fencing I used to make protecting rings for each of 60 trees. I think I also needed 3 stakes for Asian pears which in my own nursery can get hit particularly hard by deer, so when I said pears are at the bottom of their list it means Euro pears. Maybe because Euros don’t produce as much tender growth when small.
I don’t expect deer to behave the same in other regions- I have sites where they go for higher growth just a few miles from here, but if you live where it gets dry in summer, I bet they feed more aggressively.
One stake usually works with a ring of fencing and only a 3’ tall ring of fencing stops almost all buck rubbing. One stake also works to keep a newly planted tree from blowing over, even a big 2.5" diameter bearing age tree. You can tape it to a single strong branch. .
I should add that there are multiple deer browsing on my 3 acres every night.
My deer eat all of the above. Population pressure forces them to eat anything that they can digest. For example, prior to 2020 they never touched the foliage on my figs, which contains a bitter latex. Now they savage them, so much so that I have given up growing in-ground fig trees here. I suppose they prefer apples, which I have totally fenced. And mulberries – OMG they love mulberries. But the also eat pear, persimmon, plum, and peach – whatever they can reach. Every tree that is not fenced permanently is fenced temporarily (3-5 years) until the scaffolds are >6-7’.
I really don’t think it matters much which they prefer because they only have to come around once or twice a season to wreck a tree. You can go months thinking that you’re in the clear, then wake up to carnage.
The deer in my area seem to sample the younger leaves in the spring of just some apple trees but not others. This year they seem to like my Smokehouse apple tree leaves very much. It is not the smallest tree nor the closest tree to the forest area. In fact it is the second farthest apple tree away from the forest area they come out of.
In my area my experience has been if you plant it, they eat it. Potatoes, cherries, tomatoes, whatever. Only exceptions so far has been pawpaws and apricots. But we haven’t had a bad starvation winter for about 5 years now. Our last really bad starvation winter was 9 years ago. There’s still some smaller white spruce around that are shaped funny from all the browse damage they got that winter.
Aronia Bushes i call deer candy they eat them up, so i got to put a fence around mine, they wont be found growing in the wild, the deer will kill them off. same with Sun Chokes, i tried to get them established in the wild but the deer eat them to the ground.
They leave my pawpaws, figs, and (mostly) currants/gooseberries alone. They’ll eat and/or destroy just about anything else except pungent herbs and alliums. Pomegranate hasn’t been touched yet, but that’s first year.
my front yard is on a busy street in the burbs and the deer travel on the sidewalk or on the road. These trees are planted in close proximity. Pluots are the next to each other while a holly wood plum is planted 5 ft from the main door. They have grazed a few tender peach leaves but defoliated an entire 1.5" scaffold of Hollywood plum and pretty much all the new growth from Pluots planted this year.
Here at my place (Southern middle TN) the deer favorite is mulberry.
They regularly pick and eat every leaf off mine from ground level up to about 4 ft.
I am simply growing mine straight up to about 4 ft then let them branch out and up for fruiting branches.
One did eat part of the top out of a new montmorency cherry this spring… i put a cage on it and no more trouble and the new cherry has recovered nicely. I will grow it the same… straight up to 4 ft or more then branch out for fruiting.
When my persimmons reach 5.5 ft tall… i tip them and then in that top foot or so they send out several scaffold branches…
H63A persimmon grafted this spring…
I will leave that cage on for buck rub protection and those scaffold branches should be high enough to be out of reach for my deer. That cattle panel cage is 50 inches tall.
Other things the deer will regularly eat… thornless blackberries, elderberries.
Here they have never bothered CHE, Apples, Plum, Pears, Persimmons (caged or not).
I use cattle panel cages… so they could reach thru those some and eat some leaves if they were despirate for food… but that has never happened. A cattle panel cage stops browsing here… and works very well to stop buck rubs.
I tried a 4-5’ fence. Deer laughed at it. A neighbor used a 6’ fence. Ditto. I’ve had good success with 7.5’.
I’ll tell you a story to illustrate how useless a 4-5’ fence can be. A few years ago, while I was still using such a fence, I shot a big buck with a bow. It was a classic broadside shot; I put the arrow through both lungs. The buck ran straight forward 20 yards, where he encountered a hedge. He then turned left and ran 40 yards between the hedge and my fence. He then turned left again, jumping over the fence into my apple orchard. He ran 30 yards across the orchard, jumping over the fence out of the orchard. Then he ran 100 yards before collapsing under a big oak tree. I decided that if my fence wouldn’t deter a mortally wounded 250 lb buck, I was gonna need a bigger fence.
I see I’m not the only one who uses the “grow in Height first method” than promote branching. i get 6 feet in the first year on pear trees, but on the second year. i cut the top off and force branching, on the third year i decide what branches i will keep. At the end of the third year the trunk fills out and a basic shape i am looking for has now been established. height does help when deer are roaming.
For me only the pawpaws are spared. For years they left the figs alone but recently they decided they were tasty as well. Mulberries are also my deer’s favorite, probably next peach and apple and then plum. Then all the rest.
Give them enough time and they will be munching on everything…
Oh, I know that 4 feet won’t keep them out. I also have 2"x4" mesh at bottom and the rabbits barely care its there.
4 feet only keeps them out if they don’t really care whether they are in or not and are lazy.
At my place, 6’ does keep them out. I know they can jump higher than that if the need to, but they do not.
In the past I’ve strung 2 lines of plastic twine at 5 and 6 feet above the fence and that seemed to work, but I haven’t replaced it as it degraded, and I think some deer did learn to jump through them.
