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Originally Posted by DrLuke
We have two, mature Chinese chestnut trees. They produce mast every year (the nut husk is covered in spikes that would make a porcupine proud). The pods pop open and drop out 3-4 chestnuts. The deer absolutely love them. We have lots of burr oak as well. I have observed deer preferentially eating hickory nuts in our hunting timber. We have smooth bark hickory around here.
I have also planted some Dunstan chestnuts, and 3 of the 4 are close to mast bearing size (took about 5 years). Dunstan's are blight resistant. American Chestnuts were all but wiped out by a blight, but a blight resistant cultivar is being worked on still. Chinese chestnuts are also blight resistant.
I think FishinRod is on to something, re: adding some forage or cover that wasn't available before helps attract more wildlife.
Dr Luke do the deer eat the burr oak acorns? We planted some Dunstan chestnut an had a hard Time with them te first summer drought keeping them watered. This is the first year that we have had any acorns due to freeze -1 and next 2years of drought. Deer are passing the feeders for corn and protein going after acorns ( great news) keeping the slaughter down a bit from our neighbors who pay no attention to laws at all.

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Originally Posted by Pat Williamson
Dr Luke do the deer eat the burr oak acorns?

Deer are passing the feeders for corn and protein going after acorns ( great news) keeping the slaughter down a bit from our neighbors who pay no attention to laws at all.

I have dumped huge mounds of bur oak acorns at our farm. They were all gone before I put up a camera. (I think they were eaten by the deer.)

We have another bumper crop of bur oak acorns in the city this year. I will do another dump this fall and make sure the camera is in place!

If they are a greatly preferred food, I could dump them right before opening day. (I believe that is legal in Kansas, but will have to check.)

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Deer will eat the heck out of Burr Oak acorns, I have some in my woods but mostly White Oaks, which they love even more. And we have had a bumper crop this yr, I am not sure I've ever seen more White Oak acorns then what I've seen this yr.
If you can find a Burr Oak tree to dump them under, I would think it would be pretty hard to get in too much trouble for putting them out. they would have to actually see you do it to be able to assume you did anything wrong. just don't get your species of trees mixed up and dump them under the wrong tree. when they find the deer feeding on a pile of Burr Oak acorns under a walnut tree they get suspicious.
The Turkeys however seem to prefer the smaller acorns from various other species of Oaks we have.


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Originally Posted by FishinRod
Originally Posted by Pat Williamson
Dr Luke do the deer eat the burr oak acorns?

Deer are passing the feeders for corn and protein going after acorns ( great news) keeping the slaughter down a bit from our neighbors who pay no attention to laws at all.

I have dumped huge mounds of bur oak acorns at our farm. They were all gone before I put up a camera. (I think they were eaten by the deer.)

We have another bumper crop of bur oak acorns in the city this year. I will do another dump this fall and make sure the camera is in place!

If they are a greatly preferred food, I could dump them right before opening day. (I believe that is legal in Kansas, but will have to check.)

It is legal in KS. You can dump anything you want and hunt over it (for deer, migratory birds are another matter).

Deer love Burr acorns. We also have native Chinkapin and DCO that the deer love. Sawtooth also.

I have Chinese Chestnut trees growing but there have been some setbacks and they are going slow. I hope to get some production out of them in the next few years.

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Originally Posted by Pat Williamson
Originally Posted by DrLuke
We have two, mature Chinese chestnut trees. They produce mast every year (the nut husk is covered in spikes that would make a porcupine proud). The pods pop open and drop out 3-4 chestnuts. The deer absolutely love them. We have lots of burr oak as well. I have observed deer preferentially eating hickory nuts in our hunting timber. We have smooth bark hickory around here.
I have also planted some Dunstan chestnuts, and 3 of the 4 are close to mast bearing size (took about 5 years). Dunstan's are blight resistant. American Chestnuts were all but wiped out by a blight, but a blight resistant cultivar is being worked on still. Chinese chestnuts are also blight resistant.
I think FishinRod is on to something, re: adding some forage or cover that wasn't available before helps attract more wildlife.
Dr Luke do the deer eat the burr oak acorns? We planted some Dunstan chestnut an had a hard Time with them te first summer drought keeping them watered. This is the first year that we have had any acorns due to freeze -1 and next 2years of drought. Deer are passing the feeders for corn and protein going after acorns ( great news) keeping the slaughter down a bit from our neighbors who pay no attention to laws at all.



Yep. They prefer white oak and pin oak acorns at our place, but definitely eat the burr oak acorns too. You known how it is, you only eat the plain potato chips once the doritos are all gone...


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We have lots of oak and hickory. A few walnuts, but maples are taking over.
Our oaks are all kinds. Lots of red oak, white oak, some post oaks, I believe some bur oaks. Two types of hickory’s. I’ve thought about adding chestnut trees, but I’m not up there enough to keep them watered. We’ve got some food plots (winter rye and turnips) that look like putting greens. The deer are always in them. Other plots aren’t getting enough sun. Plus the drought has them looking pretty weak. With converting 9 ac of beans to CRP this spring, I’m concerned with keeping the deer around like the soybeans did. They really hammered them.


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I’m impressed with turnips but don’t eat them. I planted them one year and the deer ignored everything else until they had cleaned out the turnips.


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Originally Posted by Dave Davidson1
I’m impressed with turnips but don’t eat them. I planted them one year and the deer ignored everything else until they had cleaned out the turnips.
We tried the turnip thing and they smoked them as soon as they came up. We have way to many deer to hardly grow anything crept winter wheat which takes them about a week to flatten them

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They're ignoring our turnips yet that came up volunteer from last year's food plot.

I've kept out about 200 apple and pear seeds which I'm thinking about planting. Anyone ever have much luck doing thst and having those trees have good apples?


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Originally Posted by Rangersedge
I've kept out about 200 apple and pear seeds which I'm thinking about planting. Anyone ever have much luck doing thst and having those trees have good apples?

Are you talking about apples "good" enough for wildlife, or for human consumption?

I believe the best practice for human fruit trees is to graft a tasty variety of pear or apple onto a very rugged root stock. If you are going to go that route, make sure you plant varieties of apples or pears that are matched to your region. (For example, you must have fire blight resistant pear trees if you are in an area where it is common, etc.)

If you are just growing for wildlife, then I think it would be a fun project to start seedlings in your house. I did acorns with my kids and they enjoyed the project and got the positive feedback to their work as they observed the saplings thriving.

There are some actual tree experts on the forum, so if you are doing seeds to trees as a BIG project on your property, hopefully they will drop into your post.

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"Planted" 32 chestnut seeds and the 200 or so apple / pear seeds today in 5 gallon bucket (with holes cut near bottom) of sand (layer of sand, layer of nuts, layer of sand, etc.). Wet it down some, put a lid on, and buried it in a dirt mound for the winter. We'll see how it worked next spring. It worked well for chestnuts last winter.


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Apples / pears would be just for wildlife. Actually, chestnuts are too.

Last edited by Rangersedge; 11/25/22 07:47 PM.

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Originally Posted by Rangersedge
I've kept out about 200 apple and pear seeds which I'm thinking about planting. Anyone ever have much luck doing thst and having those trees have good apples?

I've grown peach trees from seed with good results. I just toss em on top of the ground in the fall. They will sprout on the surface come spring and start putting out roots. Dig them when the seedlings are ~6" tall and put in pots for the first summer so you can keep them safe and well-watered. Transplant in the fall or bury the pots in mulch and wait until the next spring to set them out.

I've not tried it with apples or pears but there's a ton of info on the interwebs about how to do it.

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Originally Posted by Augie
Originally Posted by Rangersedge
I've kept out about 200 apple and pear seeds which I'm thinking about planting. Anyone ever have much luck doing thst and having those trees have good apples?

I've grown peach trees from seed with good results. I just toss em on top of the ground in the fall. They will sprout on the surface come spring and start putting out roots. Dig them when the seedlings are ~6" tall and put in pots for the first summer so you can keep them safe and well-watered. Transplant in the fall or bury the pots in mulch and wait until the next spring to set them out.

I've not tried it with apples or pears but there's a ton of info on the interwebs about how to do it.

Do peaches stay true to parent form? I know when I plant apples and pears I look for very specific disease resistance and drop dates, which you can't control by planting seed as they don't stay close parent form.

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If you want access to truly blight resistant chestnuts, make a positive comment to the USDA environmental impact statement. https://www.regulations.gov/documen...SXbeuLVVea0E6-nCc61kuBzsfzpFx6cx-RL0tETg

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Originally Posted by catscratch
Do peaches stay true to parent form?


I can't definitively answer that, but I'm leaning towards a no.

I've sprouted peaches three times using the seeds from Arkansas-grown peaches that I bought at the Amish grocery.
I have no idea what variety they were, but the trees that grew from them produced fabulous peaches. The oldest of
them are getting on towards 15 years of age. I lost one to blight and there's another that's probably not going to leaf
out come spring.

Peaches are tough to grow here even when you buy good quality nursery stock. I think our tight clay soils don't agree with them.

Of the ten peach trees I have here now, eight of them were grown from seed. The other two are what's left of seven
nursery stock trees, and neither of those are very healthy now. Might get two or three more years out of them before they croak.


On the bright side, yesterday I ordered a ten-pack of Dunstan chestnut trees for spring delivery.
www.chestnuthilloutdoors.com

Brighter yet, blight-resistant Ozark Chinquapin trees have been discovered in the Misery/Arky/Okie Ozarks.
Efforts have been underway for several years to propagate these trees.

Ozark Chinquapin Foundation
National Geographic article

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Hopefully, they get some transformed with the oxalate-oxidase-enzyme gene so that they can survive and thrive!

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I planted five American Chinquapins on my farm when I first started planting trees. I thought I was far enough west of the natural range that they might never be subject to the blight. (Unless it travelled with the saplings.)

Unfortunately, only one of them is still growing. The other four were quickly eaten by the deer. I have had lots of trees in tree tubes on the farm, and the deer have nibbled tops and knocked down a few tubes. However, none of my other tree species suffered 80% deer consumption in the first year.

I don't know if the problem was my planting technique, or if the deer especially loved to browse on chinquapins. If the surviving shrub does manage to produce a good nut crop at maturity, then I think I will try some more in the future.

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All our trees had to be surrounded by wire and staked down to keep some alive from deer eating them

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RAH: Comment in favor of deregulation posted. Thanks!


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RAH: Do you know if sale of the genetic modified chestnuts was approved?


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The anti-GMO activists are still slowing the regulatory approval process for Darling 58 chestnuts. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info/sa_by_date/sa-2022/suny-chestnut Once approved, it will be years before there will be enough for folks like you and me. https://www.esf.edu/chestnut/progress-report/2021.htm

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Update: I waited too late to retrieve & open the bucket. Probably had a couple hundred very spindly apple / pear sprouts that broke easily. I think there may only about ten viable after trying to transplant. Only two of the dunstan chestnuts have sprouted so far. Don't understand that. May just plant a lot of seeds direct next year and hope they come up.

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Pretty good start on our Dunstan Chestnuts, about 70% germination rate. Chinkapin and Sawtooth are close to 100%.

For the apple from seed guys. Most I know who grow apples from seed use crabapple. I believe they are more successful with those than full sized apples.

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Awesome job, catscratch.

That looks like many, many successful projects in your classroom!

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