I see a lot of people on here have planted a lot of different fruit and nut bearing tree/shrubs. Can some of you give your input on how fast these plants have beared fruit/nuts? Looking to add a variety of tree/shrubs that will help attract deer to some property as quick as possible.


Also anybody have success with growing any of these trees in moist-to-wet soil?

Generally the fastest nut producing trees are chestnuts and hybrid oaks. Decent overview of selections there. You may set dive Chestnuts in 4-5 years. And of the hybrid oaks could produce nuts in 5. Save 10% with the code QDMA.
https://www.nativnurseries.com/colle...specialty-oaks

Apple, crab apple, wild plum and pear are generally pretty popular fruit trees.

There are lots of places to get them. You'll likely wind up choosing, depending on budget. Bareroot are cheaper, but will take longer to get established. The PGC recently opened their seedling sale. Lots of states have different sales, and open at different times of year. I like the Missouri dept of conservation, but their sale opened in december, so your choices will be a little limited.

Lastly, deer protection is an important piece of the puzzle. Budget for tubes/fence and stakes. We use a mix of tubes and wire fencing, with PVC stakes.

Not related to subject..

I’ve bought a lot of bare root stock from the National Arbor Day Foundation. They are hardy trees. They sell dwarf, semi dwarf and full size stock. I’m old fashioned, I opted for full size apple and pear trees. They’re about 11-12 inches in diameter now, probably 15-20 years old and bear well for making cider every fall.full size trees take longer to bear, but when mature, will bear more fruit than the smaller stock. I’m

I like the Missouri dept of conservation, but their sale opened in december, so your choices will be a little limited.

Lastly, deer protection is an important piece of the puzzle. Budget for tubes/fence and stakes. We use a mix of tubes and wire fencing, with PVC stakes.[/QUOTE]

In line with R.Grizz's info above. I have good success with swamp white oak in wet moist ground. Had trees starting to bear nuts at 7 years of age. Acorns size of dimes and nickels. They bear every year once they start. Have a shallow root and a deep root system both. Very hardy but without tubing them survival success will be very minimal. In addition to those that was planted for me in the Cheaspeke conservation plan, I have bought them from the Missouri DNR.

Pear trees and plum trees have been doing good to, but still waiting for fruite production about 5 years in. Hawthorne does great too in wet ground and produce early. Have not seen where deer eat the little berries other than bucks like them for polishing up their antlers once out of the tubes.

Not much luck with crabapples in wet ground, they grow slowly for me in wet ground with very little fruit production.

Part of my property is low and stays somewhat wet. I found 5 wild apples there. They are not tall or large in diameter, but they produce decent crops annually. I will be planting 2 pear trees in that area this spring. I've grown the pears in wet areas on my property for 2 years now and will be transplanting them because they have been putting on about 2 feet of growth in these wet spots.