Hedge Apples

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greybeard said:
Very! No basement here but this whole area is plagued with little tiny spiders. Inside and out. I'm assuming hedge apples are the same as we called horse apple?
I remember them from an uncle's place in NE TX as being a light green or yellow with a really rough outside and sticky with some kind of sap on them. Yes, horse apple fights were a common thing between I, my brother, and cousins. Tried playing baseball with them once. They splattered all over ya when you hit one and that sap got all over you.

If I can find some, I may try them as spider deterrent IF they don't attract ants.
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I too have heard that they keep spiders away. I haven't heard anything about attracting ants either.

I'm not sure where the term came from or if is an 'official' common name, but I have also heard of the 'apples' referred to as 'monkey brains'.
 
Logan52 said:
Osage Orange and Multi-Flora Rose are not native to this part of Kentucky. The Government promoted them as living fences back in the 1930s and 1940s. Both are now a real nuisance. The old fence rows of Osage Orange (Hedge Apples) are now large fully mature trees that make sparks fly when you go after them with a chain saw. The widely spreading branches sag to the ground and what was once a fence row now covers a 30 yard or much more strip of land where nothing grows due to the thirsty roots and dense shade, you can hardly even enter these thicketts. The thorns on the branches of the young trees that sprout in pastures are really rough on the front tires of tractors.
Fox squirrels will seek them out to feed on. I once read their original range was determined by the migration routes of mastodons in the late ice age. They were a favorite food of mastodons and sprouted from the manure of migrating mastodons.
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Fascinating about the mastodons. Another tree seed/pod that mastodons fed on as well is the Kentucky coffee tree.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
I realize this particular post is ancient and the cow is long gone. In reading this though, a very weird and possibly dangerous (but what else would you try?) What about trying a corkscrew, like you use on wine bottles, for something like this? Last resort of course as piercing the esophagus is a real danger.
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My reply from page 1:
Additionally, I'm now equipped with a stomach tube, Frick speculum, trocar, nose tongs, bloat guard, and I rigged a dowel rod with a giant screw that I can screw into a hedge apple if it's lodged where I can see it and pull it out. Also cut off the end of a heavy-duty plunger that will fit into a cow or calfs' mouth to keep it open but protected in case it jerks around while I'm yielding my screw-contraption. Hope I never need it but at least I have a plan.

My prototype was an "O screw" with the end attached to a dog leash.IMG_20211215_122827300.jpg
 
Wow! Please explain the heavy duty toilet plunger. The stick is removed and the flared end is outward to keep the mouth open so you can poke the corkscrew device down the hole?
 
TexasJerseyMilker said:
Wow! Please explain the heavy duty toilet plunger. The stick is removed and the flared end is outward to keep the mouth open so you can poke the corkscrew device down the hole?
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Exactly. While wearing a headlamp so I can see. Theoretically, the cow/calf/bull's head is secured with the harness &/or nose tongs (preferably in a chute). I can then insert the plunger in the mouth so I don't get bit, it will help keep the mouth open, plus they still have air flow. Next step is to thread the screw contraption through the hole I cut in the plunger, screw it through the hedge apple, and remove the entire thing. Slowly! In my mind, it will work. Fortunately, I still haven't had to try it but I'm prepared.
 
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SBMF 2015 said:
Must be the KS variety 😆 The deer eat the heck out of them here.
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Seriously?!? We have a ton of them in the back 40 where Mr TC has his blind. Or used to. Last year I was hauling 'em from the west 80 because he dislodges his arrow in one before he gets down from his blind and they weren't producing. Kind of like this year when they aren't producing in the west 80. Anyway, we have them all over the ranch and a gazillion deer that completely ignore them. Geography??
 
TCRanch said:
Exactly. While wearing a headlamp so I can see. Theoretically, the cow/calf/bull's head is secured with the harness &/or nose tongs (preferably in a chute). I can then insert the plunger in the mouth so I don't get bit, it will help keep the mouth open, plus they still have air flow. Next step is to thread the screw contraption through the hole I cut in the plunger, screw it through the hedge apple, and remove the entire thing. Slowly! In my mind, it will work. Fortunately, I still haven't had to try it but I'm prepared.
Click to expand...
So you had to cut a larger hole than the handle hole?
May you never need it. But it is better to have and not need than need and not have.
 
TCRanch said:
Seriously?!? We have a ton of them in the back 40 where Mr TC has his blind. Or used to. Last year I was hauling 'em from the west 80 because he dislodges his arrow in one before he gets down from his blind and they weren't producing. Kind of like this year when they aren't producing in the west 80. Anyway, we have them all over the ranch and a gazillion deer that completely ignore them. Geography??
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I think all the critters here eat them when we get snow on the ground.
 
Lucky_P said:
The whole deal about the OO fruits repelling spiders is bunk... a rural myth.
There's no evidence that that they do anything with regard to keeping spiders at bay.

https://www.americanforests.org/article/the-trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/
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Interesting @Lucky_P, I have never tried Osage Orange fruits to keep spiders away. I've seen it claimed many times that they do, and I've even seen the fruit for sale on e-bay (you can find anything there) as a spider deterrent. But, I've never seen the scientific evidence or even a hint as to what would make this possible or even make sense, especially considering that spiders are predators and aren't dependent upon anything vegetative foodwise, although vegetation gives spiders some cover and some structure on which to build their webs. Spiders don't prey on vegetation.

I love the article! I can't say I ever gave any serious thought about the hedgeapples and the fact that there didn't seem to be anything that ate them, which might have seemed slightly 'off' to me but I never gave it a second thought. I learned about the Kentucky coffee tree and how it is limited to flood plains and was once a staple (and the tree relied on it) of the diet of the wooly mammoth. I'll look at 'fruit bearing' trees very differently in North America going forward.
 
If you could hedge hedge apples for a profit I would be a financial tycoon.
Another point to make is that folklore notes their resemblance to a human brain, their wrinkled surface is similar and I have heard them called monkey brains. This led to the thought they could raise your IQ.
Another piece of folklore is that a tincture of the apple can ward off or cure cancer.
I may become rich yet if I can spread these tales far enough.
 
Dave said:
I still want to know about hedging apples on the futures market. How are they priced? By the box, the bin, the ton? I might want to get into the apple business, if the bear doesn't eat them all.
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Hey, apples are nothing to hedge with, especially when it appears the bulls have difficulty with them, especially by the bushel.
 
Mark Reynolds said:
Hey, apples are nothing to hedge with, especially when it appears the bulls have difficulty with them, especially by the bushel.
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So you are saying it is a bull market on hedged apples. Interesting. It appears to be a bear market here. Looks like I will need to do more research before jumping into the apple market with both feet.
 

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