My name is Ryan Haines and I’m the owner and founder of Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery. I started planting food plots over 20 years ago, in 1999. As I observed the response from deer to food plots, I decided to pursue improving my hunting ground by planting trees. When purchasing my first wildlife trees, there wasn’t much quality information available, and I wasn’t happy with what I saw as these initial tree plantings grew. I learned the hard way that an apple or pear tree is not just an apple or pear tree and that there are huge differences in trees that produce the same or similar fruit. Therefore, I began searching for trees that were not commercially available then. The qualities I wanted in wildlife trees were abundant annual fruit production, fruit production at a young age, good taste and attraction for whitetails and myself, and drop times starting in October and beyond, so I had fruit when the orchards of my neighbors were empty.
After moving back into the original farmhouse on our family farm, I found just a few outstanding trees growing among the thousands of wild apples that grow in and around the old farmstead in the old fence rows. These discoveries got me searching even harder to find trees. This search brought me to the tree I now call Sweet Advent pear™, and I still vividly remember that snowy December morning. This Advent pear tree had dozens of large and sweet-tasting European pears hanging like Christmas balls on a Christmas tree late in the year. As you’d expect, the deer sign was amazing under this tree! I knew I needed this tree at home and on all my properties.
Only through grafting have I achieved the great gift of bringing all of these exact fruit trees home and to my other hunting properties. Trees grown from the seeds of these trees would not have grown into the exact tree with the same taste, drop time, disease resistance, and growth characteristics. Only through grafting can I bring these same trees to you. Since finding my original Sweet Advent pear™, I have discovered other amazing trees from Central PA to Western NY that I’m bringing to the retail market for nothing more than the reasons I stated above.
I want my Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery fruit trees to produce abundant fruit, taste great, have strong disease resistance, have later drop times, and have fruit production at a young age. Trees, including cold-hardy persimmons, late-dropping apples and pears that produced annually, and chestnut trees that grew to maturity and produced were all trees that I wanted, and I’d imagine anyone managing for whitetails would want them also.
I have also gathered and grafted trees from other wildlife enthusiasts that have been gracious enough to offer up their amazing tree discoveries. These unique varieties, along with my tree findings, allow me to bring you what I feel are some of the very best trees for wildlife to ever come to the commercial market. Welcome to Blue Hill Wildlife Nursery, and now you know our story!!
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