About J. Wayne Fears

Several years ago, I bought an off-the-beaten-path farm that had a national forest on three sides. On my property and in the remote hollows of the national forest were the faint reminders of small farms that once dotted the landscape. The only signs of the Depression era farmsteads were rock chimneys, hollows where the root cellars had been, and a couple of long-neglected fruit trees. In most cases, the majority of the surviving fruit trees were pears, and they were kept a secret by those hunters who discovered them. I called them magnet trees because when the pears were dropping to the ground, deer would pass by all other food sources to get to the tasty fruit. If there were low hanging pears, the deer would stand on their rear legs to get to the fruit.

Pear trees have not gotten the attention they deserve as a tree to improve deer habitat, and to attract and hold deer during the hunting season. When the correct variety of pear is selected for a specific area, there are many reasons deer habitat managers should give them serious consideration for inclusion in their wildlife management plan. Here are just some of the advantages of pear trees:
•   Easy to establish and grow.
•   Do well in a variety of soils.
•   Require little maintenance when established.
•   Can tolerate weather extremes when correct variety is planted.
•   May produce fruit for up to 75 years.
•   Varieties can be selected for drop dates ranging from August to January.
•   Mature bucks seem to prefer pears.
•   Some varieties may produce fruit the third year after planting.

Pear varieties may be selected based in part on their drop date. This is a Chestnut Hill Trophy Pear and drops fruit from October until December.

According to David Osborn, wildlife research coordinator at the Deer Lab at University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, no orchard tree outperforms the pear when considering pounds of fruit produced during a tree’s life. Under favorable growing conditions, a mature, full-sized pear tree produces three to 30 bushels of fruit each year. At 58 pounds per bushel, that’s a lot of deer food and nutrition. It has been estimated that a one-acre pear food lot can produce up to 10 tons of fruit in good years.

Pick the Right Variety for Your Area

If your hunting land has 100 to 200 frost-free days each year and receives 40 inches of rain, you can plant pear trees for deer. However, selecting the correct variety is the secret to success. There are hundreds of pear varieties in the world. To get the best results when you want them, you must do your homework in selecting a variety that is well suited for your area and that will drop fruit when you want to feed deer. It would take pages in this magazine to cover all the considerations needed to pick a pear tree variety, but the best way to choose is to consult with your nearest university extension service agent or speak with a nearby nursery owner. They know the varieties that work best for your specific area.

When you talk with them, know where you will be planting the pears, as chill hours are important in pear production. Chilling hours are the accumulated number of hours a tree is exposed to air temperatures between 32 F and 45 F. For most varieties, pear trees require 800 to 1,500 chilling hours before they will begin growth in the spring.

	Young pear seedlings need to have tree tube protection for the first three years to prevent buck rubbing and browsing.

Next, know when you want fruit to drop. This is important if you want to plant pears to attract deer during your hunting season. For example, if you are an early-season bowhunter, you may want to plant pear tree varieties such as Hunter’s Choice from The Whitetail Group Nursery, or Trophy Pear from Chestnut Hill Nursery. These varieties drop fruit in October and November. If you are a gun hunter, you may want a variety such as Wildlife Pear from The Whitetail Group that drops fruit from late November until January. For late summer and early fall, many of the Kieffer varieties work well.

Most pear varieties require cross-pollination so you will want to talk to your extension agent or tree nursery about getting a mix of varieties that will successfully cross-pollinate. This holds true whether you are planting a half-dozen trees around a food plot or a one-acre pear food lot. Keep in mind that fire blight is a major disease that attacks pear trees, so be sure to find varieties that are fire blight resistant.

Planting Information

Once you have decided on what varieties of pear trees are best suited for your area, and your desired fruit bearing months, the next step is to find a nursery that can supply you with the trees you want. You may be given a choice of bareroot seedlings or container plants. The bareroot plants will likely be 1-year-old grafted plants that ship toward the end of the year. They are the easiest to plant. Container plants are older plants that are two to three years old. They require more work to plant but bear fruit much more quickly. Regardless of which type of seedling you choose, be sure to follow the nursery instructions on planting and management, and be sure to plant during the winter.

For a food lot, plant pear trees with a spacing of 20-25 feet apart. This is to ensure that at maximum tree size, they don’t crowd one another and that you will get maximum fruit production. Be sure to plant pear trees where they can get at least six hours of daylight each day.

This trail camera shows how bucks can be attracted to a pear tree.

For the first three to four years of the seedling’s life, place a light-colored tree tube around each tree to protect it from bucks rubbing on them or rabbits and other animals browsing on the bark.

Small lot plantings with late-season drop times have proven to be great for attracting deer. Consider planting six to ten trees on the edge of an old field, log landing, or at one end of a food plot. Give the trees the same spacing and care as if in a food lot.

Pear trees, when the right varieties are chosen and planted correctly, can be one of the best deer magnets found on the land. They are easy to manage and can be productive for decades.