Beyond chestnuts
Persimmon & pecan seedlings
Chestnuts feed deer in September and October. These two extend the calendar in both directions and give your property a longer, more reliable food supply.
Diospyros virginiana
American Persimmon Seedlings
The best late-season deer magnet you can plant. Persimmons drop soft, sugary fruit exactly when deer are feeding hardest, and they keep dropping into November.
Carya illinoinensis
Northern Pecan Seedlings
A long-term investment tree. Slow to bear, but a mature northern pecan is a legacy: decades of nuts, valuable timber and serious wildlife value.
Diospyros virginiana · native
American Persimmon Seedlings
If you hunt the late season, this is arguably the most valuable tree you can put in the ground.
American persimmon is native to the Midwest, tough as nails, drought tolerant, and productive on ground where almost nothing else will fruit. It handles clay, old pasture and poor soil that would kill a chestnut.
The fruit is extremely high in sugar and, critically, it drops over a long window rather than all at once. Where a chestnut dumps its crop in a few weeks, a persimmon keeps feeding from late September through hard frost. That is exactly when deer are feeding hardest and hunting pressure is highest.
For your own kitchen, wait until the fruit is fully soft. Underripe persimmon is famously astringent. Fully ripe, it tastes like dates and brown sugar and makes excellent pudding, bread and jam.
Plant in groups. Persimmons are mostly dioecious, meaning each tree is male or female, and you cannot tell which until it flowers years later. Only females fruit, and they need a male nearby. Plant at least five seedlings in a group, ideally more, so the odds work in your favor.
| Species | Diospyros virginiana, native American persimmon |
|---|---|
| Fruit drop | Late September through hard frost, a long window |
| Hardiness | Native and fully cold hardy across Iowa |
| Soil | Very adaptable. Handles clay, poor and dry ground |
| Best for | Late-season deer hunting, poor soils, native plantings |
Carya illinoinensis · northern seed sources
Northern Pecan Seedlings
A legacy tree. Slow to bear, but a mature northern pecan is decades of nuts, real timber value and serious wildlife draw.
Seed source matters more with pecan than almost any other nut tree. Northern-adapted sources ripen earlier and handle cold far better than the southern pecans grown commercially in Georgia and Texas. A southern pecan planted in Iowa will struggle to ever ripen a crop.
Pecans have a deep taproot and want deep, rich, moist soil. River bottoms, creek terraces and old field bottoms are ideal. They will survive on upland ground but they will not thrive there.
Plant at least two for cross pollination.
Be honest about the timeline. Seedling pecans commonly take ten to fifteen years to bear meaningfully. If you need deer food in five years, plant chestnuts and persimmons and add pecans as the long game.
| Species | Carya illinoinensis, northern seed sources |
|---|---|
| Harvest | October |
| Hardiness | Northern-adapted selections suited to Iowa |
| Soil | Deep, rich, moist bottomland preferred |
| Time to bear | Roughly 10 to 15 years from seedling |
Build a season-long food source
Early chestnuts in September. Mid and late chestnuts through October. Persimmons from late September to hard frost. Pecans in October for the long haul.