Planting for Wild Turkeys in Cold Country

Written by Luke Ruffner Robinson, owner of Montana Fruit Trees in Missoula, Montana.

Northern turkeys come in two kinds, Merriam's in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and western South Dakota, and eastern birds in Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. For both, winter is what limits them, and the best thing a landowner can plant is fruit that stays on above the snow, close to good roost trees, on the edges where turkeys already feed. Hawthorn and crabapples do that job better than anything else we grow. Plums, chokecherries and currants carry the birds through late summer and fall, and oaks and hazel pay off years down the road.

Why fruit matters so much to northern turkeys

Turkeys are tough birds. They can scratch through ice and snow to get at food, but when the snow gets too deep or crusts over, the food on the ground is gone (NWTF). Minnesota DNR puts a number on it: "Turkey starvation losses generally do not begin until powdery snow depths exceed 10 inches for 20 consecutive days" (MN DNR). Studies have found winter survival runs 70 to 100 percent in normal winters and can fall to 50 to 60 percent in very hard northern winters, and a mature bird can lose up to 40 percent of its body weight before spring (Realtree).

A study of radio-marked hens in central Minnesota found survival was higher for hens with extra food in two mild winters, but in a winter with above-average snow, survival "was extremely low even with supplemental food." The authors concluded food plots "may only partially offset effects of deep snow" and that winter survival may set the northern edge of the turkey's range (Kane, Kimmel and Faber 2007, Journal of Wildlife Management).

So fruit that stays on the branch is worth a lot. Leftover crabapples and plums count as winter food "as long as [that soft mast] is persistent, meaning it hangs on the tree and above the snow cover through the winter" (Realtree). The NWTF's guidance for northern range turkeys names "standing corn, apple trees and shrubs capable of holding fruit" as winter food sources (NWTF, Little and Erikson).

Montana has its own evidence. When Merriam's were first released here in the 1950s, a Montana State thesis followed the birds through winter. In the Judith Mountains, "Hawthorn seeds were the most abundant items in 214 (37.7%) Judith winter droppings." Grain was the top item in the Long Pines, and when deep snow covered the grain fields the birds moved to livestock feeding areas (Rose 1956, Montana State College).

Crabapples and soft mast, in their words

Tim Barberg of Maximized Habitats in Dassel, Minnesota: "Crab apples are phenomenal for turkeys." He added, "I have a client with trees that will be covered in turkeys through the winter until the fruits are devoured." (NWTF)
Clayton Lenk, NWTF district biologist for Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Dakotas: "Soft mast trees and shrubs such as persimmons or crabapples are excellent sources of food during the winter months" (NWTF)
Brian Wakeling, Montana FWP's Game Management Bureau chief: "Their success in northern areas like Montana is due to artificial food sources during the winter months" (NWTF)

A lot of our northern turkeys get through winter on ranch and farm feed, which is the reason fruit planted on the edge of good cover matters. It gives the birds a natural food source that doesn't depend on a feedlot.

Merriam's in the north: a little history

Merriam's aren't native this far north. They evolved in the ponderosa pine forests of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. In 1954 Montana brought in 13 Merriam's from Wyoming and released them in the central and eastern part of the state, and today there are roughly 120,000 Merriam's in Montana (NWTF). Wakeling says, "Turkeys like to live where food and water is easy to come by, such as river valleys, just like we do." Cottonwood bottoms and upland ponderosa are the two kinds of country our turkeys use, and both come up again below in the roost section.

What turkeys eat through the year

Season	What they're after	What to plant or keep
Spring (April to May)	Grasses are usually important spring foods (FEIS). Flocks break up for breeding.	Open grassy edges near roost timber.
Summer (June to August)	Poults need high-protein insects for their first couple months. Open areas like alfalfa fields supply grasshoppers (MN DNR).	Grass and forb openings, hay ground, a mowed lane through the planting.
Late summer to fall (August to October)	Mast and fruit become the main foods (FEIS). Native soft mast like chokecherry, currant and silver buffaloberry for Merriam's (NWTF). Wild plums ripen August to September.	Plums, chokecherry, golden currant, crabs coming ripe.
Winter (November to March)	Fruit that hangs above the snow, acorns ("the staple of their winter diet" per MN DNR), waste grain, wind-swept fields. Birds flock up and move very little in deep snow.	Crabapples, hawthorn, oaks, roost trees close by.

The best plants we grow for turkeys

Plant	What it gives turkeys	When	Hardy to
Dolgo crabapple	Bright red 1-inch crabs (NDSU). Crabapples are winter soft mast for turkeys (NWTF).	Ripens late August (NDSU). How long it hangs varies; we're starting a drop log	Zone 1b
Rescue applecrab	Bigger applecrab on full-size Dolgo roots. It pollenizes Dolgo (Dolgo blooms in group 2, Rescue in group 3).	Fall	Zone 1
Hawthorn	The top winter food in Montana's Judith Mountains study (Rose 1956). Thorny cover too.	Fruit lasts "well past first frost" (RGS)	Zone 3
Golden currant	Native soft mast for Merriam's (NWTF).	Summer	Zone 2
Native American plum and Prairie Red plum	"Wild plums are eaten by turkey" and plum thickets "often furnish valuable protective shelter" (NRCS).	August to September	Zone 2
Chokecherry	Native soft mast for Merriam's (NWTF). Dried fruit that hangs on helps in winter (Realtree).	Late summer	Zone 2
Nanking cherry	Fast, bushy filler that thickens a plum and cherry thicket.	Early summer	Zone 2
Bur oak and northern red oak	Acorns, the winter staple in Minnesota (MN DNR). Slow: bur oak doesn't start bearing until about 35, and its best crops come at 75 to 150 years (NRCS).	Fall into winter	Zone 3
American hazelnut	Nuts eaten by "ruffed grouse and other large birds, and deer" (FEIS). A thick suckering shrub layer under the oaks.	Late summer to fall	Zone 3
Trader mulberry	Mulberries that hang on dried can help winter birds (Realtree).	Summer	Zone 3
Staghorn sumac	Sumac berries are a preferred turkey food (MN DNR).	Fall through winter	Zone 3
Ponderosa pine and cottonwood	Future roost trees. A long-term investment, but these are what Merriam's sleep in.	Year round	Zone 1 (pine), zone 2 (cottonwood)

Junipers are a turkey food too (FEIS), but Rocky Mountain juniper is an alternate host for cedar-apple rust. Its relatives, hawthorn rust, quince rust and juniper broom rust, also hit hawthorn, serviceberry, pear and mountain ash, and UMN Extension says not to plant junipers "within a few hundred yards of apples, hawthorns" and their relatives (UMN Extension). Keep junipers that far from your crabs and hawthorns where your ground allows, or leave them out of a fruit planting entirely.

How to lay it out

Where on the property

Woodland edges. "Woodland edges provide the best foraging areas, and turkeys tend to avoid areas of dense brush" (MN DNR). Plant fruit along the edge between timber and open ground, not deep in the woods.
South and west slopes. "South and west facing slopes are important foraging and resting areas" (MN DNR), and on south slopes "sunlight limits snow depths" (NWTF). That's where the snow goes first and where your fruit trees will get the most sun.
Within a quarter mile of roost trees, closer if you can.
Near openings. Hens bring broods to grassy, weedy openings for bugs. A fruit row along a hayfield or a grassy opening serves both the summer brood and the winter flock.
Away from the house in bear country. Fruit draws bears (more below).

Spacing and arrangement

Plant	Spacing	Arrangement
Full-size crabs and applecrabs (Dolgo, Rescue)	About 20 ft apart. Standard-root apples reach 20 to 25 ft (NDSU).	Along the edge in a loose line or a small cluster so they pollenize each other.
Hawthorn	Wider than the shrubs, since it grows into a small tree	Clumps of three on the outside of the crabs.
Shrubs (currant, Nanking, chokecherry, plum)	3 to 6 ft in the row, 6 to 10 ft between rows (UMN Extension)	Thickets of one kind, or two short rows on the field side.
Oaks	Room to become big trees	Scattered on the upland side. MN DNR suggests keeping 3 to 6 large mast trees per acre.
Hazelnut	Shrub spacing, 3 to 6 ft in the row (UMN)	A hedge beside the oaks. It spreads by rhizomes, sending up new shoots 1 to 2 ft from the parent (FEIS).

On a quarter-acre strip along a south-facing timber edge, we'd plant a row of three hawthorns and two Dolgos with a Rescue in the middle, set 20 ft back from the trees so they get full sun, and a row of golden currants on the open side. Add a plum and chokecherry thicket 50 to 100 yards down the same edge. That gives you fruit from July into winter on one walk. Ruffed grouse use the same kind of hawthorn edges, so if you've got grouse woods too, see our ruffed grouse guide.

Soil, sun and water

All of these want full sun to fruit well. Crabs, plums and chokecherries handle a wide range of soils as long as water doesn't sit on the roots. Water with drip. It's the only way we recommend watering young trees. On dry Montana and Wyoming ground, trees without it mostly just sit there. One emitter per shrub and two per tree, run through the first two or three summers, is plenty.

Don't forget roost trees

"Turkeys need trees for roosting" (NWTF). In the southern Black Hills, radio-marked Merriam's hens "roosted exclusively in ponderosa pine trees," chose trees over 30 cm (about 12 inches) in diameter, and roosted "primarily on the upper portions of ridges on easterly aspects." Birds using supplemental feed roosted right next to the ranch where the feed was (Thompson, Rumble, Flake and Lehman 2009). In Minnesota, turkeys "prefer to roost at night in mature, open branched hardwoods or large pine trees near hillsides" (MN DNR). Along rivers, cottonwoods do the job, and they're slipping. Collin Smith, NWTF's district biologist for Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, says "Cottonwoods, which are critical for Merriam's wild turkeys, are in decline" (NWTF).

The distance from roost to food matters most in deep snow. In Montana's first turkey study, birds normally cruised two to three miles a day, but "during periods of deep snow, this distance was decreased to about one-fourth of a mile from the roost areas" (Rose 1956). NWTF says "The shorter the trip between the roost and food source, the better on bitter cold days that sap precious calories" (NWTF). And if you don't have big trees, Lenk says, "Maybe you don't have roosting trees, but your neighbor does." Plant within a quarter mile of somebody's roost and you're in business.

Planting and the first three years

Fall before planting: pick your edge, kill the sod in a circle at least 3 ft across (wider is better), or a strip, where each tree and shrub goes. Grass is hard on young fruit trees.
Spring, at delivery: soak bare roots a few hours, plant at the same depth they grew, firm the soil, water in well.
Same day: cage every tree and shrub, and put a trunk guard on for rabbits and voles (details below).
Year 1: run drip through the summer, keep weeds back with mulch and mowing (no fabric, see below), and don't prune much beyond broken branches.
Year 2: start shaping the crabs with a few strong scaffold limbs. Clear competing brush away from fruiting shrubs. DiBona's advice from NWTF: "if you have crabapples, chokecherries, hawthorns or some other species of tree or shrub" that fruit for wildlife, clear competing vegetation so they grow and fruit better.
Year 3: Nanking and currants should be fruiting. Plums and chokecherries are close behind. Raise cages as trees grow. Keep the drip going in dry summers.
Years 4 to 6: full-size crabs usually start bearing in about 5 to 6 years. I'd leave cages on the crabs and hawthorn until the limbs are above deer reach, around 5 ft. Plums, chokecherry and Nanking that have suckered into a thicket can usually lose their cages once the clump is bigger than what deer can eat back.

Protecting the planting

Deer will browse every plant on this list, and bucks rub young trunks in fall. Use a welded-wire cage about 5 ft tall and 3 ft across for each tree. Where elk come through, MSU recommends an 8 ft fence with a top rail (MSU WARC). Trunk tubes alone won't stop rubs.

Rabbits and voles girdle trunks in winter. Put a 1/4 in. hardware cloth or plastic cylinder on each trunk. UNL Extension says it "should be at least 18 inches above the snow depth," if possible (UNL NebGuide G887), and UMN Extension says "The base should be buried in the soil or have a soil ridge around the base" (UMN Extension). Mow the grass around the planting and keep it short. Skip the plastic or fabric weed barrier, because "voles often thrive under plastic weed barriers" laid around tree and shrub plantings (UNL). Mulch, mowing and a weed-free circle do the job without giving voles a roof.

Timing it to turkey season

Montana runs a spring gobbler season (April 15 to May 31 in 2026) and an either-sex fall season (September 1 to January 1) (Montana FWP). The fall season isn't statewide, though. The general license covers fall turkeys in Regions 1 to 3 and 5 to 7, not Region 4, and the regional licenses have their own limits. North Dakota's tentative 2026 dates put spring turkey at April 11 and fall turkey at October 10 (ND Game and Fish). Dates and open areas change every year, so check current regs for your state and unit.

Fall hunters get the most direct payoff. Plums and chokecherries ripen in August and September, right when mast and fruit become the main turkey foods, and hawthorn holds its fruit well past frost.
Spring hunters benefit in a less obvious way. Birds that winter on your place with food and roost close together are the birds that are there when the snow melts and the gobbling starts.

For spring, I'd use the planting to learn where the birds are. A flock that wintered on your crabs and hawthorn roosts close by, and gobblers tend to strut the open edges nearby in April. I'd set up between the roost and the opening, not in the fruit. That's my take, not research.

The fall they start bearing

Plums, chokecherries and currants usually fruit in a few years. Full-size crabs usually take about 5 to 6. When the trees finally load up, I'd keep it simple:

Let the fruit hang and fall where it grows. Don't pick it up and pile it. That's feeding, and in some states it's baiting (see Safety and the law).
Keep the cages and trunk guards on. Bucks still rub, and voles don't care how old the tree is.
Hang a trail camera on a couple of trees and write down when the fruit drops and when the birds show up. We're starting a drop log for the varieties we grow, and notes from real plantings up north are the best data there is.

Mistakes to avoid

Planting fruit in deep timber. Turkeys feed on edges and avoid dense brush (MN DNR), and fruit trees need sun.
Planting too far from roost trees. A quarter mile is about the limit in a deep-snow winter.
Choosing varieties that drop early. A big sweet apple that's on the ground in September is under snow by December. Plant hawthorn and small crabs instead, and watch which ones hang longest on your place.
Russian olive. Merriam's will eat Russian olive fruit, but it's less nutritious, and it crowds out native soft mast like "chokecherry, currant and silver buffalo berry" (NWTF). In eastern Montana, native cottonwood and willow are being replaced by Russian olive (NRCS). Don't plant it, and if you've got it along a creek, think about replacing it.
Juniper next to crabs, hawthorn or serviceberry. Cedar-apple rust and its relatives.
Counting on a food plot alone. In deep snow, food plots only partly made up for the winter in the Minnesota study. Woody fruit above the snow and roost trees close by do things a plot can't.

Safety and the law

Feeding is not the same as planting

Montana's feeding law, MCA 87-6-216, specifically names wild turkeys along with hoofed game, bears and mountain lions. It exempts normal agricultural practices and cultivating a lawn or garden, and it lets FWP act on turkey feeding when it harms the local population or creates a nuisance. Montana FWP's turkey page says "Keep wildlife wild! Do not feed," warns that feeding concentrates flocks and may "cause an increase in disease transmission," and notes fines up to $1,000 (Montana FWP). NWTF also warns that feedlots "can be problematic if birds concentrate, which can lead to them spreading diseases." Growing fruit trees and shrubs is habitat work, which is a different thing from hauling in feed. Don't pick up fruit and pile it.

Baiting

Rules on hunting over fruit or nuts you pick, move or pile vary by state. South Dakota's bait station rule names turkeys. Nobody may keep a bait station "to attract any big game animal, including wild turkey" from August 1 through February 1 and March 15 through May 31, and bait includes grains, fruits and nuts. The rule doesn't apply to food a person didn't place or gather that comes from accepted farming, forest management, wildlife food plantings or orchard management (ARSD 41:06:04:03). Minnesota's deer baiting statute names "wildlife food plantings, orchard management" as not bait (Minn. Stat. 97B.328), but that's the deer law. Minnesota also has an emergency deer feeding ban in 37 counties, running through December 2027. It covers grain or fruit "capable of attracting or enticing deer," which includes turkey feed unless it's at least six feet off the ground or fenced so deer can't reach it, and it exempts food that's there "solely as a result of normal agricultural, forest management, or wildlife food-planting practices" (MN DNR). Rules change, so check your state's current regs before you hunt near a planting.

Bears

Montana FWP says "Bears are attracted to fruit-bearing trees and bushes," and recommends picking fruit once it's ripe and considering an electric fence around fruit trees (Montana FWP). In grizzly country, put wildlife fruit well away from houses, barns and where kids play.

Livestock

Chokecherry foliage can poison cattle and sheep, and hydrogen cyanide is released when frost damages the leaves (FEIS). Keep chokecherry out of pastures.

Ready-made bundles for turkeys

Wild Turkey Winter Fruit: 2 Dolgo crabapples, a Rescue applecrab to pollenize them, 3 hawthorns and 3 golden currants. Crabs for fall and hawthorn fruit that holds past frost. Zone 3.
Turkey and Whitetail Plum Thicket: 3 native American plums, 2 Prairie Red plums, 3 chokecherries and 3 Nanking cherries. Late summer fruit and thick cover. Zone 2.
Whitetail and Turkey Acorn Grove: 3 bur oaks, 3 northern red oaks and 3 American hazelnuts. Plant it for your grandkids. Zone 3.

The plum thicket and the acorn grove do double duty for deer, so see our whitetail orchard guide too. To see how cold your spot gets, use our cold hardiness calculator. See all our wildlife orchard bundles.

More planting guides

Sources

NWTF, Scott Mackenthun, "Assisting with Survival" (2026): nwtf.org
NWTF, Brian Lovett, "How Turkeys Survive Winter with a Boost from Conservation" (2025): nwtf.org
NWTF, Doug Little and Bob Erikson, "Winter Habitat for Northern-Range Turkeys": nwtf.org
NWTF, Lisa Ballard, "Behind the Bird: History and Conservation of the Merriam's Wild Turkey": nwtf.org
Realtree, "How Wild Turkeys Endure Winter, and What You Can Do to Help" (2023): realtree.com
Minnesota DNR, managing woodlands for wild turkeys: dnr.state.mn.us
Kane, Kimmel and Faber (2007), Winter Survival of Wild Turkey Females in Central Minnesota, Journal of Wildlife Management 71(6): bioone.org
Thompson, Rumble, Flake and Lehman (2009), Multiple-Scale Roost Habitat Comparisons of Female Merriam's Wild Turkeys in the Southern Black Hills, Western North American Naturalist 69(1): bioone.org
Rose (1956), An Evaluation of Two Introductions of Merriam's Wild Turkey into Montana, Montana State College thesis: scholarworks.montana.edu
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Snyder (1992), Meleagris gallopavo: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Rocky Mountain juniper: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, chokecherry: fs.usda.gov
USDA Forest Service FEIS, Coladonato (1993), American hazelnut: fs.usda.gov
USDA NRCS Plant Guide, American plum: usda.gov
USDA NRCS Montana, Combs (2010), Russian olive and saltcedar BMPs: nrcs.usda.gov
NDSU Extension, Kalb, Growing Apples in North Dakota: ndsu.edu
University of Minnesota Extension, shelterbelt and shrub spacing: extension.umn.edu
MSU Western Agricultural Research Center, orchard infrastructure: agresearch.montana.edu
Montana FWP, turkey regulations: fwp.mt.gov; living with turkeys: fwp.mt.gov; living in bear country: fwp.mt.gov
Montana Code Annotated 87-6-216: mca.legmt.gov
Minnesota Statutes 97B.328: revisor.mn.gov
Minnesota DNR, deer feeding ban emergency rule (effective June 29, 2026): dnr.state.mn.us
South Dakota Administrative Rules 41:06:04:03, bait stations: sdlegislature.gov
North Dakota Game and Fish, tentative 2026 season opening dates (Jan. 9, 2026): gf.nd.gov
Ruffed Grouse Society, Jared Elm, "Know Your Cover: Hawthorn": ruffedgrousesociety.org
NDSU Extension, The Best Crabapple Cultivars for North Dakota: ndsu.edu
USDA NRCS Plant Guide, bur oak: usda.gov
University of Minnesota Extension, cedar-apple rust and other juniper rusts: extension.umn.edu; vole damage: extension.umn.edu
UNL Extension NebGuide G887, Vantassel, Hygnstrom and Ferraro (2011), Controlling Vole Damage: unl.edu