When it comes to planting trees for deer in Mississippi, most hunters focus on two things in particular – food attractiveness during deer season, and how long it takes the tree to produce that first mast crop.
For fast producing trees that benefit deer, soft mast varieties are usually the superior choice. But, let’s not totally rule out acorn bearing oaks.
Below are some of the best trees you can plant in the Mississippi deer woods. These will all produce fruit or nuts relatively quickly.
The Mississippi plant hardiness zone ranges from 7b in the North, to 8a and 8b for most of the state. There is also a tiny sliver of zone 7b on the Gulf.
1. Mississippi Hunters Should Plant Persimmons
(Diospyros virginiana)
Soft mast trees, such as persimmon, are great deer attractants during bow season. Deer absolutely love its little orange fruits.
It takes about 6 years for a new Common American Persimmon tree to begin producing fruit. However, you can get faster results by planting some of the grafted varieties instead, such as the Deer Magnet Persimmon.
Aside from watering newly planted trees, persimmons are low maintenance and easy to grow, and should be near the top of any Southern hunter’s list. They also grow in fairly poor soils.
Regardless of whether you plant common persimmon, or a grafted version, be sure to plant more than one. Some persimmons are males and some are females, and you won’t be able to tell until they start producing fruit.
The best time of the year to plant trees in Mississippi is at the very end of winter. The months of February and March are ideal.
2. Kieffer Pear Trees Grow Well In Mississippi
Kieffer pear trees are some of the best fruit trees to grow in your tree plots. With plenty of sun, they grow fast and will produce fruit within 3 to 10 years. They typically ripen during early bow season, whereas many other pear species grown down South ripen too early to benefit hunters.
Kieffers are a hardy tree that can grow in some of the poorer soils found in much of the state, as long as it’s well drained. They have to be pollinated, so you will need to plant more than 1 pear tree.
This variety of pear can often be found locally in the big box stores, around planting time.
A nice bonus is that pears are delicious, and you can collect some for yourself and your family to enjoy as well.
Adequate sunlight is key for your tree plantings. Be sure not to plant trees too close together. They should be 20-40 feet apart, depending on species.
3. Planting Sawtooth Acorns For Mississippi Deer
Sawtooth acorn trees don’t drop at an ideal time for Mississippi gun hunters. However, their productivity does line up just in time for early bow season in October.
Sawtooth oaks can begin dropping acorns as early as 5 years old, but it’ll be more like 7 to 10 years before a significant mast production occurs. These are the quickest acorn producing trees that you can possibly plant in Mississippi.
Another nice thing about Sawtooths, is that the acorns can usually be relied upon year after year, unlike some of the other native oak species.
With all that said, I would not necessarily go all-in on such a non-native species. Instead, I plan to mix in some other longer-term native oaks as well, such as Nuttall and Shumard.
Newly planted native oak trees can eventually take over the role of hard mast production. In the meantime, Sawtooths can get you into some action within your lifetime.
Deer love chestnuts! Plant some fast producing Dunstan’s around your food plots for an early season attractant.
4. Dunstan Chestnut
The American Chestnut was once quite common in Mississippi forests until a blight killed them all off. Nevertheless, there are other species of blight-resistant chestnuts that we can still use today, such as the Dunstan and the Auburn.
Deer love chestnuts more than acorns, and chestnut trees produce much faster than oaks, so it’s worth planting a few.
Dunstans should produce hard mast in about 5 years!
Trees ship to Mississippi Walmart stores each year. You’ll need to determine the ship date to your local Walmart, so that you can purchase some before they’re gone.
If you go to the Chestnut Hill Outdoors website, you can see when your local Walmart is expected to receive shipments of various trees, such as chestnuts and persimmons. Your local store may only get one shipment, so you’ll have to stay on top of when the trees ship, by visiting the site above.
Other Great Long Term Trees
Some other great longer-term options are Swamp Chestnut, Nuttal Oaks and Shumard Oak. Unfortunately, you’ll likely have to settle in, and wait potentially 20 years to start seeing any return on those. Although, there have been claims that some of these start dropping earlier than that.
2 Ways To Get Fast Mast From Trees
Thin Around Existing Trees
If, like me, you have a percentage of your property planted in pines, or some other less desirable species, you may not be totally out of luck. Let’s face it, pine tree prices are in the toilet, so getting rid of some small pines wouldn’t be a big deal.
One thing you can do is seek out existing quality deer trees hiding amongst your pines, and clear the competing trees away from them. I have some white oaks that I can do this for, and I feel certain that there are some persimmon trees hiding somewhere on my property that I can also clear space for.
Buy Larger Container Trees
It definitely costs more to buy larger container stock trees, as opposed to smaller containers, or bare root trees. But, with large container trees, you shave years off how long it takes for those trees to produce. If you can afford to go that route, and are able to baby your trees, that can be a good way to go.
Conclusion
If you can successfully establish a selection of the trees listed above, you’ll likely have the best early season deer attractant in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, these selections won’t be much of a draw during the late Mississippi gun season. No matter, most Mississippi gun hunters fall back on a ready supply of “yellow acorns” by then anyway 😉 (i.e. corn feeders).
The list above is certainly not exhaustive. While I do believe these are some of the best trees to plant for Mississippi Deer, there are additional good options. Other notable mentions are the wild crabapple, the Chinese chestnut, and various other grafted varieties of fruit trees.
Check out the Mossy Oak Tree Nursery website for more information about the various trees that you can plant for our local wildlife.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also be interested in the Best Mississippi Counties For Deer Hunting.
Cheers!
Augustus Clay
