Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery, LLC

Do deer eat quarter sized crabs? The tracks in the fresh snow paints a picture to answer that question. A food source is a food source this one is just time released. Many people will ask, what variety of Crabapple is that? This is not a named cultivar It happens to be just a wild crabapple. In planting wild crabapples you will get wide variations. As the picture shows, it is doing the job of providing food for deer and other wildlife. https://bluehillwildlifenursery.com//wild-crabapple-malus/

Sweet November is a Applecrab! This tree began dropping fruit the beginning of November and is still continuing to drop fruit and attract deer as of today. This applecrab resides in Northern New York in plant hardiness zone 4. This 2" applecrab is very sweet, will fully ripen and hangs well in the north. I believe that once this tree is grafted and growing here and below the 40th degree latitude (northern and southern states) we will all see something special. Sweet Novem...ber bears very heavy crops of very clean applecrabs. You can see in the 1st picture how heavily it produced on very young wood. The original tree carries strong weeping limbs from all the years of producing so much fruit. This tree has never been sprayed in its life. Shows strong resistance to Cedar Apple Rust (C.A.R. is very present in this area), fruit and leaves are clean showing no signs of scab, or infections of blight having ever been on this old tree and with that said powdery mildew would have most likely brought this tree down at a young age in the wild. There was a Browning trail camera placed to cover this tree during the month of November and then a Spypoint was moved in early December. So with pictures taken at 2 different angles, Sweet November definitely looked to be a preferred tree among a 1,000 other wild apple trees within close vicinity. See more

This cultivar was grown by and given to me by Mr. John Trout (he has alot of great grafting videos on you tube for those that are interested). This tree has been proving to be something special from up in the north to well into the deep south. It begins producing at a young age, its consistent and has a nice drop. The drop will swing a few weeks from north to deep south. For those of you that are interested in fruit trees or growing trees for deer. There is alot of great people, tips and ideas can be found on https://habitat-talk.com/index.php?forums/fruit-trees.5/ and http://deerhunterforum.com/index.php?forums/fruit-trees.11/

I'm going to close the chapter on this tree! The camera I had on it has been moved to another tree that has been proving itself to be a winner! This tree that I have posted about in my latest few posts has officially been named "Lockdown Crab". Although it may be a little cliche, I just saw the name as being fitting because a majority of the drop did occur during the exact period of time that lockdown occurs. A period of time at which I took my buck that was locked down wit...h a doe this year year on November 20th. This tree kept the attention of a lot of deer right up until the end. I added a few pictures to this post taken the last few days before the camera was moved. Theres was many more pictures taken even though most deer had moved off to a tree now named "Sweet November" that is still holding and dropping alot. The original tree is not located on my property and I did not harvest my buck from this tree. That being said this tree will be added to my management plan because of its drop time and attraction during that critical time of season. I have been fortunate enough to expand and be able to go through 1,000’s and 1,000's of wild growing trees thanks to all of you. It normaly takes about 500 to a 1,000 trees to find something truly special when looking at drop time, disease resistance, fruit quality, ect. Lockdown Crab is one of those trees that fits the above criteria and has pretty much finished its drop in the last week. As far as drop, this trees is occurring for the right reasons during an essential time of season. You could probably figure the drop a few weeks earlier in the south and be right on the money in states such as NY, PA, OH, MI, Northern IN, Northern IL, WI, IA, Southern MN. Lockdown Crab is something special and is an apple crab you will definitely see next year!

Just a little update on that apple crab I had posted about back on November 4th. This tree Still has fruit hanging and dropping. I was looking for something that the main drop would be short, sweet, late and at a good time. This tree fits that description. This crab provide an adequate drop for all of us whether we like to hunt the rut or focus on our firearm seasons. Im sure the question is when will this drop for me? Abscission is what causes a fruit to drop. Its the cell division between fruit and tree. Abscission happens for different reasons to different trees. On this tree I believe its happening for the right reasons. Drop times can swing a few weeks on the same tree, at the same location on any given year. What I'm saying is many of us should see a very similar drop from this tree. Also this tree needs a name any ideas?