Getting Plants Print E-mail


Hunters can transplant wild persimmon, apple, pear, and even oak trees to choice hunting locations. It's best done when plants are dormant, without leaves, from late autumn to early spring. Young plants or "babies" are available from some types of wild plants, like persimmons, as they grow up from the parent tree root system. Be sure to get a young plant's entire "root ball," and it's wise to plant several young trees or bushes in a choice hunting location to ensure success, since not all plants survive.

Some plants, like honeysuckle, apple, and pear trees, are available from nurseries, and they're not particularly expensive.

The Wildlife Group in Tuskegee, Alabama, sells plants suitable for enhancing whitetail habitat via mail order, such as Japanese honeysuckle, persimmons, crab apples, oaks, olives, pears, chestnuts, and others. The company also offers a brochure guide to wild plantings.

The Whitetail Institute, Pennington Seed Company, and Frigid Forage are a few of the companies that sell wildlife food seeds, and offer expertise on planting various seeds for whitetails in different regions. Check state agencies as well, as many sell wildlife seeds and trees, too.

You may feel more like a farmer than a bowhunter, but sportsmen who want to enhance fruit trees on whitetail property should have the following:

A spade for digging up mature plants and for placing them and shrubs in new locations.
A hand trowel for transplanting and digging holes for tree fertilizing.
A spreader of some type for broadcasting seeds and/or fertilizer. Some small hand-crank spreaders fasten around the shoulders or neck and work nicely. Standard walk-behind lawn spreaders also can be used.
Binoculars to help you locate important whitetail wild fruits like apples and pears in spring, when they're blooming, and to help you spot mature fruit (apples, persimmons, etc.) in treetops during autumn.
A detailed topo map of hunt propertyimportant for marking the locations of deer food sources. Make copious notes so sites can be easily located again for hunting and for an ongoing program of fertilizing, pruning and nurturing.
A portable GPS navigation unit, especially useful for pinpointing wild fruit-bearing plants in remote areas.
Red flagging material for "marking" and keeping track of plants that have been fertilized. This is particularly helpful if many plants in your hunt area have been enhanced over a wide area.


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