Great story to follow! I just had a Aha moment while reviewing the pics a moment ago. I just started wondering how you kept the deer away. Nice fence! Makes me want to put in a section to play with. But the darn deer here. Hmmmmm.
Nursery's no longer grow stock on speculation. Orders are placed and they graft the variety on whatever rootstock the customer chooses. Because of this one orders 18 months to 2 years in the future and then a delivery date will be established. The nursery I deal with really doesn't want orders under 25 trees and for practical reasons good prices aren't achieved until you order at least 100 trees. Then prices are very good, $6.50-9.75/tree depending on size which is 5/16th to fully feathered trees.
Originally I tried the easy and cheap way out but erecting a 6.5' high tensile smooth wire fenced spaced at 9". The deer went right through it. I salvaged the project by covering the lower part with poultry wire but it rusted and looked terrible. Finally I tore it down, salvaged the smooth wire for use in the trellises and erected real 8' deer fencing I salvaged from a deer farm that is no longer in business. Got it for about 20 cents on the dollar and a ton of sweat equity.
Guess I didn't answer your question. For deer food you don't really care about efficiency and production. The only real consideration is getting a tree large enough quickly enough so the deer don't kill it before it get large enough. I hated the M111 and tore them out in my orchard, because they were way to vigorous and wanted to grow way too much wood and not near enough apples for the size. For a deer stand, the M111 would be the way to go.
Bandit, wonderful pictures and explanations of your orchard. For those of you interested in deer fencing, Ann and Eric Nordell have been market gardeners for years. Just last month in the Rural Heritage Magazine they explained their deer fences to protect their valuable market crops. Here is the address and you will need to scroll down about 1/2 page and you will see the article concerning deer fencing. And it has worked for them for years and is not tall, it messes with the deers sight. Rural Heritage Reading Room – Review Current Magazine Edit, I see the article itself is not available, only the picture. Also notice in the picture the angled portion of the fence can be raised so it can be mown underneath. I have the magazine, anyone really interested in the article I will see about copying it. Farther down is a nice log loader pulled by a team of horses and I believe that family is in Wisconsin.
Interesting fence design. Looks like it would make mowing a bear. I have mine 4-6" off the ground. Once in a while it is easy for the rod of the anti scalp wheel to catch on the fence and bend it as I try and mow under the fence. I have had the roll bar catch too until I made a guard for it. Real deer fencing is expensive and very heavy. A roll weighs weighs 345#s a 330' roll.
Actually the angled section can be lifted and propped up so mowing can take place under it. It is a lot less expensive and they have practical working knowledge of its success. I do have the magazine at home, could copy off the article if you wanted to read about the whole thing.
Thanks for the generous offer. I mow 3 acres of grass and use a 50" mower for a "trim mowing". The main mower is a 62" with a Yannmar diesel. Everything in my yard is done with riders and wood mulch is around everything that needs to be trimmed. I also spray growth regulators where string trimmers are used in order to only trim about every 4th time of mowing. I don't mind mowing grass, I hate trimming.
Hmm...........I see all my pics have gone away. That's too bad. Anyway, took some pics after picking apples today.
Nice looking apples. Makes me want to take a bite. Our neighbour has an old apple tree that really produced a lot of small woody apples this year. It is the first time in the 15 years we have lived here that a bear was up the apple tree one morning. His yard has a high but wooden fence around it and the bear took off over the fence when our two dogs went barking outside at the bear.
Get with a moderator and edit this thread with pictures that won’t go away. I’d love to see them and it’s likely others would like to see them also.
If a member posts their pics from a 3rd party hosting site, there’s nothing Moderating can do about “disappearing” pics. It’s best to just upload pics directly to FHC.
I realize that and it’s sort of what I was driving at. I hate it when people host from a 3rd party site, as the pics always disappear. It turns an otherwise informative and useful thread into one that is useless for those reading into the future. What I meant about a moderator helping was unlocking the “edit” function so the person can re-post the photo’s back into the thread. Some forums this can be done by the moderator after the time to edit as already “timed out”.
Wow you just read my mind. If I could edit it would be easy. If you guys show some interest I can still redo this.
I was browsing the Fedco catalog last night, dreaming. I don’t expect to ever try what you’ve done, but this thread has been very educational and fun to follow.
Never heard of Fedco. I just glanced at their catalog, prices are quadruple what I pay and they have very limited selection of root stock and what they do stock is not really for production. If you are truly interested PM me.
Our local conservation district has a fundraiser sale using them as the source. I was there looking at the Christmas trees (also expensive) but got drawn in by the apples. I have too many irons in the fire now, but thank you for the offer!