08/19/2026
Yates would be the number one tree I would plant for Pennsylvania's rifle season. Our rifle season runs from late November into early December.
These trees are planted on low ground, and their blossoms survived the spring freeze, leaving them with a respectable fruit crop. These trees have been in the ground for 2½ years. In my 10 years of having this "grafted" variety at an age where it is fruit-bearing, I have never seen a year when they didn't hang with fruit.
To understand what I mean by "grafted," notice how each tree in the video looks the same. That's because they are the same. We take wood from these trees, and each bud grows into a tree genetically identical to the original.
Let's say you like to rifle hunt in Pennsylvania, or you simply want a lot of deer in one location during the time I'm talking about. You could stack this tree and add some pollinators dropping during the same period, and you could have a crazy attraction happening on your property during that specific time.
Those drop times would also correlate well to northern Ohio, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, and central Iowa. Jump farther north, and you'll push the drop time a little later the farther you go.
Go south into Kentucky, northern Tennessee, southern Illinois, central to southern Missouri, and into Kansas, and you're moving that drop time back into late October and November.
Yates Apple – Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery
https://bluehillwildlifenursery.com/product/yates-apple-tree/
