Ever thought about planting trees to help maintain the quality of your deer population, and even attract more deer to your property? I bet most of you probably just laughed and said, “Yeah right, what is this guy talking about?” Well let me tell you something, certain trees can provide an excellent food source for deer. For instance, apple, crabapple, and pear trees would all make great food sources. Fruit is to deer what candy is to humans, it’s sweet and something that they don’t get all the time. The good thing about trees as food plots is that they are low-maintenance and somewhat cheap to plant. One drawback of these trees, however, is that they don’t usually produce fruit until they get to be about 4-5 feet in height. The size of the tree you buy will determine how long it will be before it starts producing fruit. Another good tree to plant would be any tree from the oak family. Oak trees naturally produce acorns, which deer are known to snack on from time to time.
Now that you know that facts you may want to reconsider planting a few trees along with your food plot. I mean really, what could it hurt?
That is an awesome point you made here about land management. When you talk to somebody about how to increase the wildlife population on your land they will tell you what kind of agricultural crop you should plant like alfafa, red or white clover, or wheat. Professionals I have spoken to and things I have read rarely refer to planting trees. Planting those trees really makes sense and I bet it works well. Some things to consider when you are planting trees are that deer sometimes eat saplings and bucks can use them to rub their velvet off. Both those things can kill the trees. In the winter deer also eat the bark off of trees occasionally. I still think that planting oats or fruit trees could really benefit the deer population though.
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