Mast tree question

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woodsman87

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I'm sure this has been asked before, but I want to get your thoughts on it.
Certian white and even red oaks deer eat, while others in the same area they do not? For example, my place has spot in the ridge where there is a couple of persimmons and a few white and red oaks. They hit them heavily, but on the next ridge over its almost as they completely ignore them.
My best guess would be that there is something in the soil. But do each trees genetics make them taste difference? There isn't any type of bedding area or anything closre to one than the other. For some reason, they like some trees over others.
 
It is the amount of tannin=tanci acid in the acorns. Some are more bitter than others. Taste them yourself and you can see. Same is true with persimmons, they don't eat them all.
 
I found a persimmon tree loaded down with hundreds of ripe fruit. They were all over the ground too, and I ate one, and it was completely ripe. But there was no deer sign around the tree. 20 yards away in fresh cut corn, there were deer tracks.
 
Could also be that there is so much food in the one concentrated area that they feel no need to venture farther out for food yet as well.
 
Well, it is like this year after year after year. These two particular persimmons and few oaks attract them, others do not. I have heard the term tannic acid. Does the soil it grow in make the tannin differnet. 100 yards away in every direction they do not eat them. It is this one particulay one acre spot of trees.
 
Not all White Oaks are the same. The Chestnut Oak is in the white Oak family but deer around here seldom eat them.
 
Some persimmons do not ripen until later in the year. I have also saw deer leave white oaks and feed on the chestnut oaks after a hard freeze.
 
Some firmly believe in the "dominant tree" theory, in which deer flock to one particular dropping white oak, passing other dropping white oaks to get there. And often, that dominant tree is the same tree every year it produces.

Personally, I am not a believer in that theory.
 
bigtex said:
Not all White Oaks are the same. The Chestnut Oak is in the white Oak family but deer around here seldom eat them.
Click to expand...

Not chestnut oak. These are the regular white oaks.
 
Also I don't think its soil because I found one on my lease about 6 years ago. I saw double digit deer numbers everytime I hunted there in bow season. That tree hasn't been worth a quarter since then. It was just for that year.
 

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