# Native trees and shrubs for deer and wild turkey: acorns, fruit, cover and a planting plan

> What deer and wild turkeys eat, how many years each oak, hickory and fruit tree takes to bear, where cover and openings go, and what a food plot cannot do.

Published 2026-09-22. Tags: What to plant, Forests & habitat. By Blue Whale Trees, a native tree nursery in the United States. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-deer-and-turkey/

Plant oaks from both the white and the red group, and add trees and shrubs whose fruit, ripening in turn from June, lasts into late winter. Set them along the edge between woods and an open field. Then cage every young plant, because the deer you are planting for will eat the seedlings first. White-group acorns feed deer and turkeys in fall, red-group acorns and the fruit that hangs on feed them in late winter, and the opening grows spring forage for deer and summer insects for turkey poults. Most oaks take 20 years or more to bear, so shrubs that fruit within a few years carry the planting until the oaks come in.

![A flock of wild turkeys walking through a winter meadow beside a river lined with bare trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/native-trees-for-deer-and-turkey-1-1000.jpg?v=cec673a3 "Wild turkeys in a meadow by the North Fork of the Holston River, Washington County, Virginia, on January 28, 2017. Winter into early spring is the leanest time of year for wildlife.")
*Photo: Nyttend, [Public domain](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFederal_Road_wild_turkey_flock.jpg) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFederal_Road_wild_turkey_flock.jpg))*

## What deer and turkeys eat through the year

Deer eat forbs, the broad-leaved herbs, when they can find them, browse all year and [mast](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/glossary/index.html.md), the nuts and fruit of trees and shrubs, whenever it falls. They strongly prefer forbs, which are more digestible, and browse matters because it is there in every month. Mast is highly preferred and seasonal: in southwestern Virginia, acorns averaged 76 percent of the diet by volume in years when they were abundant. Winter diets lean hardest on mast in the Midwest and Southeast.

![A white-tailed deer holding a green leaf in its mouth beside a dense, shrubby woods edge](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/native-trees-for-deer-and-turkey-2-1000.jpg?v=3df32d06 "A white-tailed deer browsing at the edge of the woods in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, on July 13, 2008. Browse matters to deer because it is there in every month.")
*Photo: John Brian McCarthy, [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ADeer_2008_07_13_2770_(2686762907).jpg))*

Turkeys take whatever the season offers: seeds, fruit, green leaves, buds and insects. Grasses and other greens matter most in spring and mast and fruit in fall and winter, and animal food, mostly insects, makes up 10 to 20 percent of the diet. Poults rely on insects for protein, and their survival is low where the habitat does not support insects. For turkeys, acorns are a treat rather than a staple, because [the crop swings from year to year](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/mast-years/index.html.md), and soft mast, the fleshy fruit, is the steadier food.

The two animals overlap most in fall and winter, when both eat acorns and fruit. They part ways in spring and summer, when deer want forbs and tender browse and a turkey brood wants insects in open ground. The lean season for both is late winter, after the white-group acorns are gone. The boom-and-bust mast years are covered in [native trees for wildlife](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-trees-for-wildlife/index.html.md).

## Acorns and nuts, and how long they take

The two oak groups feed deer and turkeys at different times. Most wildlife prefer the less bitter white-group acorns and eat them quickly in fall, and a white oak acorn sprouts soon after it drops. Red-group acorns keep much longer, so they are still on the ground in late winter when other food is scarce, and they fill the years when white oaks bear few. A red-group acorn also takes two seasons to ripen. That puts the groups on different calendars: an April 1955 freeze that caught cherrybark oak in flower emptied its crop over much of its range in 1956. Plant both [red oaks and white oaks](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/red-oaks-and-white-oaks/index.html.md), and one bad spring cannot take the whole year.

Among the oaks we grow, swamp chestnut oak and overcup oak are white-group trees of moist ground and cherrybark oak is a red-group tree for the same bottomland. Swamp chestnut acorns are very palatable to deer, and wild turkeys are among the heaviest eaters of cherrybark acorns. Blue Whale Trees grows its swamp chestnut oak from a single parent tree selected for acorn size and sells it, like the other two, as saplings or as acorns. [Dwarf chinquapin oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/dwarf-chinquapin-oak/index.html.md), a white-group shrub oak for dry sandy or rocky ground, bears within three to five years and crops every year, and [bear oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/bear-oak/index.html.md) is the red-group shrub oak for the poorest sand. Both are in the [Rare Oak Collection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/bundles/rare-oak-collection/index.html.md).

### How long the oaks take

Oaks may take more than 25 years to produce acorns, Ohio State's extension guide warns. Silvics of North America gives these bearing ages, with white oak and northern red oak for comparison:

| Tree | First crop | A good crop |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Flowering dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/flowering-dogwood/index.html.md) | about 6 years from seed | every other year |
| [American persimmon](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-persimmon/index.html.md) | sometimes at 10 years, heaviest at 25 to 50 | about every 2 years |
| [Black walnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-walnut/index.html.md), grown in the open | a few nuts at 4 to 6 years, large crops at 20 to 30 | perhaps twice in 5 years |
| [Northern pecan](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pecan/index.html.md) from seed | up to 20 years | every 1 to 3 years |
| [Swamp chestnut oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/swamp-chestnut-oak/index.html.md), white group | 20 to 25 years, heaviest around 40 | every 3 to 5 years |
| [Overcup oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/overcup-oak/index.html.md), white group | about 25 years | every 3 or 4 years |
| [White oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/white-oak/index.html.md) | normally 50 years, as early as 20 in the open | every 4 to 10 years |
| [Cherrybark oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/cherrybark-oak/index.html.md), red group | about 25 years, heaviest at 50 to 75 | every 1 or 2 years |
| [Northern red oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/northern-red-oak/index.html.md) | about 25 years, abundant from 50 | every 2 to 5 years |
| [Mockernut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/mockernut-hickory/index.html.md), [pignut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/pignut-hickory/index.html.md), [shagbark](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/shagbark-hickory/index.html.md) and [shellbark hickory](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/shellbark-hickory/index.html.md) | 25, 30, 40 and 40 years | every 1 to 3 years |

Mast comes from big, open crowns. Northern red oaks with large, uncrowded crowns out-produce crowded ones. Planting works best in the open or along the edge of existing woods. Give each tree the room its crown will need: a swamp chestnut oak's crown spreads 40 to 60 feet. Plant fast crops beside the slow ones: [American hazelnut](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-hazelnut/index.html.md) bears within a few years and does best on woodland edges and in openings. It is a fall and winter food for deer and gamebirds.

![A huge open-grown white oak with a broad rounded crown standing alone on mown grass beside a road](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/native-trees-for-deer-and-turkey-4-1000.jpg?v=341d5d62 "The Keeler Oak, a white oak in Mansfield Township, New Jersey, in May 2013. A crown grown in the open, with nothing crowding it, is the crown that bears the most acorns.")
*Photo: Marty Aligata at English Wikipedia, [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKeeler_Oak_Tree_-_distance_photo%2C_May_2013.jpg))*

### Hickories and walnuts

Hickories and walnuts are squirrel food first. Mockernuts are preferred mast, particularly for squirrels, and turkeys take hickory nuts in small amounts. Squirrels and woodpeckers are among the few animals that can open a black walnut, and deer browse young walnuts and rub them with their antlers. Shagbark, shellbark, mockernut and pignut hickory, northern pecan and black walnut belong in the plan for the long run, after the oaks and the fruit.

## Fruit from June to late winter

Soft mast is perishable and sugary rather than fat-rich and seldom lasts into winter in quantity, though in a drought it can supply moisture as well as food. Plant a sequence, so that something is ripening from June until the last winter fruit is gone:

| Plant | Fruit | What the sources say |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [Downy serviceberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/downy-serviceberry/index.html.md) | Early summer | Often gone to songbirds within days |
| [Red mulberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/red-mulberry/index.html.md) | Follows serviceberry | Many birds and mammals drawn to the fruit |
| [American plum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-plum/index.html.md) | Summer | A deer food |
| [Beach plum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/beach-plum/index.html.md) | Summer | The plum for dry sand |
| [Black elderberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-elderberry/index.html.md) | Late summer | Fruit and cover for birds, robins and catbirds among them |
| [Gray dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/gray-dogwood/index.html.md) and [silky dogwood](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/silky-dogwood/index.html.md) | Summer into early fall | The shrub dogwoods |
| [Black gum](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-gum/index.html.md) | Late summer into fall | A turkey food |
| Flowering dogwood | September and October | At least 36 kinds of birds, wild turkeys among them, and deer |
| American persimmon | September until late winter | Deer and turkeys alike; only female trees bear, so plant several |
| [Washington hawthorn](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/washington-hawthorn/index.html.md) | Held into spring | On the Forest Service's list of turkey foods |
| [American crabapple](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-crabapple/index.html.md) | Held into spring | Fruit relished by many songbirds and mammals |
| [American holly](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/american-holly/index.html.md) | Held into spring | Fruit draws songbirds, ruffed grouse and deer |
| [Staghorn sumac](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/staghorn-sumac/index.html.md) | Held into spring | On the Forest Service's list of turkey foods |
| [Common hackberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/common-hackberry/index.html.md) | Held into spring | On the Forest Service's list of turkey foods |

The fruit that lasts is the fruit animals pass over in fall.

> "Make sure to include some plants that retain their fruit through winter into early spring, the time of greatest food scarcity." (Penn State Extension, *Landscaping for Wildlife: Trees, Shrubs, and Vines*)

Hawthorn, crabapple, holly, sumac and hackberry are the ones in the table that do. The [Bird & Berry Hedgerow](https://bluewhaletrees.com/bundles/bird-hedgerow/index.html.md) sets serviceberry, elderberry, [black chokeberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/black-chokeberry/index.html.md), [nannyberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/nannyberry/index.html.md), winterberry, hawthorn and crabapple about six feet apart in a mixed hedge that fruits from June through the following March. [Blackhaw](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/blackhaw/index.html.md), an excellent mast producer, belongs beside it.

## Cover, openings and the edge between them

Deer do best where food and cover lie close together, and management guides aim for 40 to 60 percent of the land in forage and the rest in cover. At least a quarter of a property should be in dense cover, in blocks of three to five acres thick enough to limit sight to 50 or 60 yards.

Turkeys want the opposite: mature, open woods broken by grassy openings, which make up 10 to 25 percent of a good range, and they are reluctant to use ground where brush cuts off their view. Hens nest on the ground near openings and edges, where the brood can reach insects soon after hatching. Brood habitat, which carries poults through their first eight weeks, includes forest openings of half an acre to three acres with legumes and other herbaceous growth that holds insects. Maryland's wildlife service calls for at least 5 percent of a wooded property in such openings. Turkeys roost in big, open-crowned trees within half a mile of food, and nesting hens need water within 200 yards of the nest.

![A wild turkey hen walking with three small poults across a paved road at the edge of a leafy woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/articles/native-trees-for-deer-and-turkey-3-1000.jpg?v=eaabae2d "A wild turkey hen with poults at a woods edge in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, on July 31, 2024. Poults rely on insects for protein, which they find in open, herbaceous ground.")
*Photo: National Park Service / Luca Pfeiffer, [Public domain](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWild_turkeys_(54004544308).jpg) ([source](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AWild_turkeys_(54004544308).jpg))*

A flock needs 500 to 1,000 contiguous acres, usually at least 30 percent wooded, so a planting on a smaller property feeds birds that also use the neighbors' land. On the ground, keep the opening open and plant around it. Set the oaks and hickories in the open or along the woods edge. Plant a band of fruiting shrubs and small trees between them and the opening. That band is the soft edge a food plot should have around it. Run a hedgerow of hazelnut, plum and dogwood along a fence line for food and a covered way between patches of woods. The [tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md) narrows the species to the ground you have.

## Protecting the planting from the deer it is meant to feed

Deer reach forage up to about five feet, and the plants in this plan are [their preferred foods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/native-shrubs-and-trees-deer-leave-alone/index.html.md). In the Northeast, this includes dogwood, hawthorn, holly, apple, black tupelo, oak, sumac, sassafras and viburnum.

Deer relish young black gum sprouts and readily browse persimmon sprouts and the twigs of [sassafras](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/sassafras/index.html.md). In a Connecticut trial, seedlings in tree shelters grew taller and died less often than seedlings in mesh sleeves, but deer browsed the trees that grew out of the top of 4-foot shelters.

> "Unprotected black walnut seedlings were actually shorter after 3 yr than when planted because of browsing." (J.S. Ward and G.R. Stephens, *Protection of tree seedlings from deer browsing*, 1995)

Put a shelter or a welded-wire cage at least five feet tall on every tree the day it is planted. Leave it until the leader is out of reach. The article on [protecting young trees from animals](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md) covers the hardware and the bucks that rub in fall. Keep the weeds down by mowing or herbicide for the first few years, and plant more than the design needs. Sowing in place needs the widest margin: one recommendation for cherrybark oak was 2,000 acorns an acre to establish 500 seedlings, and [planting acorns, nuts and seed](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-acorns-nuts-and-seed/index.html.md) covers the method.

## Trees are not a food plot

A food plot of clover, grain or brassicas needs equipment and a yearly commitment of time and money. Under ordinary management, plots need at least 5 percent of a property before the effect shows. They also have limits:

> "Food plots should not be used as a substitute for natural wildlife foods." (Ohio State University Extension, *Guide to Creating Food Plots for White-Tailed Deer*)

Grain patches for turkeys can be expensive and are not always there when winter comes. Trees are slow, then lasting: an oak bears for a century or more without reseeding, and the fruit, nuts and cover come from the same plants. The fastest mast is the kind already standing. Cutting the trees that crowd an existing oak, hickory or fruit tree lets its crown expand. This is crop tree release, an excellent way to raise hard and soft mast in a relatively short time. The plan combines them:

- An opening in grass and clover, kept open.
- A soft edge of fruiting shrubs between it and the trees, from the fruit table above or the [Bird & Berry Hedgerow](https://bluewhaletrees.com/bundles/bird-hedgerow/index.html.md).
- Oaks of both groups behind the edge, with room to spread, from the [Rare Oak Collection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/bundles/rare-oak-collection/index.html.md) or whatever the [tree finder](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/tree-finder/index.html.md) picks for the ground.

## Common questions

### What trees should I plant for deer and turkeys?

Plant oaks from both the white and the red group first, then fruit that ripens in sequence, all set along an edge beside an opening. The sequence runs from serviceberry in June to the hawthorn, crabapple and persimmon that last into late winter.

### How long does an oak take to produce acorns?

Swamp chestnut, overcup, cherrybark and northern red oak first bear at 20 to 25 years and reach their heaviest crops between about 40 and 75, and white oak in a forest waits until 50. Dwarf chinquapin oak bears within three to five years.

### Is a food plot or a tree planting better for deer?

Neither replaces the other: a plot is forage that takes equipment, time and money every year, while oaks and fruit trees take years to bear and then feed and shelter deer for decades.

## Sources

- [Odocoileus virginianus, Fire Effects Information System](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/animals/mammal/odvi/all.html): USDA Forest Service: deer preferring forbs and relying on browse, acorns at 76 percent of the diet in southwestern Virginia in good years, winter mast use by region, preferred foods in the Northeast, the 5-foot reach, edges and the 40 to 60 percent forage guideline.
- [Meleagris gallopavo, Fire Effects Information System](https://www.fs.usda.gov/database/feis/animals/bird/mega/all.html): USDA Forest Service: seasonal turkey foods, poults relying on insects for protein, plant foods including dogwood, black gum, hackberry, hickory, hawthorn, oak and sumac, and openings as 10 to 25 percent of the range.
- [Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management Leaflet 12](https://efotg.sc.egov.usda.gov/references/public/SC/Wild_Turkey.pdf): USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Wildlife Habitat Council (1999): insects in the diet and for poults, nest sites near openings and edges, brood openings of half an acre to three acres, and roost trees near food.
- [Making a Home for Wild Turkeys in Maryland](https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/hunt_trap/WT_Home4Turkeys.aspx): Maryland Department of Natural Resources: acorns as an inconsistent food and soft mast as the steadier one, brood openings, turkeys avoiding brush that blocks their view, space for a flock, water for nesting hens, and the limits of grain patches.
- [Enhancing Food (Mast) Production for Woodland Wildlife in Ohio](https://cfaes-contenthub.org.ohio-state.edu/fact-sheet/enhancing-food-mast-production-woodland-wildlife-ohio): Ohio State University Extension (2025): hard and soft mast, white-group acorns eaten first and red-group acorns lasting into late winter, oaks taking more than 25 years to bear, planting in the open, weed control, crop tree release, the animals that eat hazelnut, plum and walnut, blackhaw as an excellent mast producer, and serviceberry gone to songbirds within days.
- [Guide to Creating Food Plots for White-Tailed Deer](https://ohioline.osu.edu/factsheet/anr-61): Ohio State University Extension: food plots as a supplement rather than a substitute, the share of a property they need, dense cover, hedgerows and soft edges.
- [Landscaping for Wildlife: Trees, Shrubs, and Vines](https://extension.psu.edu/landscaping-for-wildlife-trees-shrubs-and-vines): Penn State Extension: fruiting periods by species, the plants that hold fruit into spring, and the animals drawn to red mulberry, elderberry, American crabapple and American holly.
- [Silvics of North America, Volume 2: Hardwoods](https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/1548): USDA Forest Service (1990): first crops and crop intervals for the oaks, hickories, pecan, black walnut, persimmon and flowering dogwood, the animals that eat their fruit and nuts, deer browse on black gum, persimmon, sassafras and walnut, crown size and acorns, the 1955 freeze and direct seeding of cherrybark oak.
- [Protection of tree seedlings from deer browsing](https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/12824): J.S. Ward and G.R. Stephens, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report NE-197 (1995): tree shelters against mesh sleeves in Connecticut, browsing on trees growing out of 4-foot shelters, and unprotected walnut seedlings losing height.
- [Small Tree, Big Impact: Why the Dwarf Chinquapin Oak Deserves a Place in Your Landscape](https://extension.umd.edu/resource/native-trees-maryland-small-tree-big-impact-why-dwarf-chinquapin-oak-deserves-place-your-landscape): University of Maryland Extension: first acorns within three to five years and a crop every year.