Growing wildlife pears and apples is getting to be a big thing. Some websites make a booming business from it. Wondered if anyone is involved in selling or growing wildlife pears? Here is an example http://www.wildlifegrowers.com/ and another http://www.nativnurseries.com/p-51-wild-deer-pear-pyrus-communis.aspx
I am, probably 50% of my business comes from guys planting for wildlife habitat projects. I have a couple wild seedling pears that I am trialing now for future sales. I wouldnt say its a booming business but some people are better at hyping things than others.
Actually most of the large commercial nurseries offer some kind of āwildlife packageā.
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Clark,
The Wildlife Group, back in my old stomping grounds in East Alabama offer a number of local/regional Southern pear selections for folks to plant out on hunting properties as soft mast sources
http://www.wildlifegroup.com/
I have several of the varieties they offer - having gotten them from Drs. Nunn (at Loachapoka) and Griffith (at Dadeville) many years ago. Also have another one that I discovered in 2007, in Tallapoosa Co., ALā¦ New Yearās Dayā¦ I spotted the tree from the roadā¦ still loaded with fruit, and the ground littered with round russeted pears. May have some fruits this year to tasteā¦ those I saw in '07 had been through several freeze/thaws and werenāt really edible by human standardsā¦ but Iām betting the deer will eat them!.
Iām topworking āvolunteerā callery pear seedlings around the farm to wildlife-friendly pearsā¦ and there are more and more calleries popping up around the place every year.
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Lucky,
Sounds like a great plan turning wild callery into usable fruiting pears! I do that a lot myself. Let us know how they turn out!