Prarie Crab Apple…. ??

I am planning on placing an order through the WI DNR for a bunch of pine trees to plant this spring. I also see that they have Prairie Crab Apples that I could get. Does anyone have any experience with these crabapple trees?

I assume that they are shipped as very small seedlings (similar to the pine trees that I’ll order – maybe a foot or so tall??). From the DNR website, it stated to plant them “in clumps”. Anyone know exactly what this means? 1-2 feet apart? 20 feet apart? They come in packets of 100, I’m assuming that will be plenty for my purposes of improving a small section of habitat on the back of my 7 acre backyard…

How do the deer respond to the fruit? Is it a preferred food source?

Any other things I need to know for a decent survival rate for these trees?

Thanks!

I have some crab apple trees in a pasture that usually hold onto their fruit until Feb/March. Those trees are visited daily. I like to climb them and shake out a few trees every visit in the woods to keep them coming back.

I would advise a training program using the Shake-Weight to get ready!!!

My neighbor has crab trees lining his driveway, and they get HAMMERED all winter by the turkeys – Many dozens of birds at a time usually.

Sounds good, thanks for the reply.

Anyone have any experience with that species (Prairie Crab) in particular?

Mike

As an Arborist, I’m not even sure what they mean since a “clump” in the tree world means a multi-stem tree, like a birch. That said, my guess is they could mean planting 3 trees or so in the same spot with the hopes that at least 1 would survive or that planting them in clumps across a broader area to ensure cross pollination. At full maturity, the crown of these trees will get to be about 15ft wide or so. I would start off by planting them 6-8 feet apart and thinning them out as they mature and run out of growing space. If you just want to plant them and forget about em, go 10 feet from each other. Keep in mind though that your survival rate isn’t going to be 100% though so I would recommend over planting and then selectively thinning out the weaker, diseased or damaged trees as time goes on.

Hope this helps. and feel free to PM me with any questions.

Thanks for the info.. Sounds about right. I found some more info on the DNR site that discussed planting more specifically. “Clump” vs row planting, and they gave proper spacing specs for the trees, which is similar to what you are saying. I ordered 200 crabs and 800 white spruce, so we’ll see what sort of cover/food source/feeding areas I can create with those. Planting them is going to be —- fun…