I am looking to plant quite a few apple trees for wildlife on my land. What nursery do you utilize? They dont have to be front yard grade 1 trees.

Not a short term solution, but if a guy was willing to do some work himself, an inexpensive longer term solution for a lot of trees would be to buy root stock for $5 or less each, then bud graft your own. Plant root stock in the spring where you want the tree to end up. Bud graft in late summer. If graft takes, you are off and running.

Yes considering that. As well considering grafting some improved varieties of paw paws and persimmons on some of my trees that are already growing. I beleive persimmons are dioecious and would like to get more fruit on many of the persimmons so considering grafting those. Not sure on the paw paws but I have a ton of root stock and trees growing about 20 foot tall that don't produce any fruit.

Here you go.

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/7938294/fruit-tree-order#Post7938294

I got their catalog but they only ship to areas where Speedee delivery goes and that ain't here, lol.

That may depend on the tree, the fruit and any pruning. We grafted some pears about 8 years ago. They were getting that tall.....no blooms or fruit..... then last year, finally bloomed and set maybe 8 to 10 pears per tree. This year, they have about 1 bushel each and are getting pretty tall. Have a Liberty out back that is at least 5 years old and this is first year it produced anything. Semi-dwarf tree pruned into open vase shape.

Either way, going from a small tree planting to producing tree requires some care, and at least 3 to 5 years before any fruit sets. But you probably already know what.

BTW, for wildlife, I'd probably use a semi-dwarf root stock. No support needed, larger trees, longer lifespan, but will be 5 years before you see any fruit.

On the persimmons, I'd try planting seeds in pots, then transplanting anything that came up. As a kid growing up, we had two massive persimmon trees along driveway. Like 2 to 3 foot diameter trunk massive. About as wide as they were tall. Both were male trees. All blooms, no fruit. So if you have one not setting any fruit, it may be a male.

I think persimmon seeds have to get same treatment as pecans. Soaked a day or so in water, then packed in peat and stored in reefer for a few months before planting.

https://marketplace.uidaho.edu/C202....jsp?PRODUCTID=2628&SINGLESTORE=true
I've got some of these. Just started producing apples after probably 5 years. Bigger than a crab but a medium sized apple at best. Could be from the drought we're in.

I've seen large blocks (100 trees plus) planted for deer, but that was long enough ago there are a few things I don't remember.

They did plant them in typical rows and spacing. They were keeping the block mowed. Past that, how are you guys maintaining the trees? Keeping them sprayed? Pruning? On the latter, I've observed trees on neighbor's property, they were never pruned at all, so have large, upright growth, but fruit set is entirely different on them. Seem to be self thinning and appears more like spacing of ornaments on a Christmas tree than tight clusters like on many managed fruit trees. I would think it would help to keep limbs trimmed from ground up, at least high enough to mow around and maybe spray around with Roundup to keep weed load down. Past that, maybe some dormant oil in late winter and some Sevin to knock out a few early bugs and to thin.

There are supposed to be some highly disease resistant varieties like Enterprise, Freedom and Liberty. Have tried eating the first two and they were not very good. Liberty is OK. Don't know if the deer care that much. We have some early green summer apples called Lodi that are very, very tart. Deer like those, but especially like the leaves and buds. They hammer those from first bud into the summer. Past that, do some varieties have more pull than others? Tart? Sweet? Doesn't matter?

The #1 draw for me is ornamental crab apples. Once frost hits them and they start to drop, he deer show every single night........50 feet from the front door.

It may be worth sending him an email. I don't know the guy be he was SUPER helpful when I had questions and was easy to get along with. He may ship UPS or something if you ask.