The LuEsther T. Why are there so many acorns this year? Do they predict a harsh winter? Answer Like many trees, oaks have irregular cycles of boom and bust. All oaks produce acorns. Acorns belonging to trees in the red oak group take two growing seasons to mature; acorns in the white oak group mature in one season.
Oak trees have greenish, inconspicuous female flowers and are wind pollinated. One huge oak can drop up to 10, acorns in a mast year! Masting takes a lot of energy! Oak trees grow slowly in a mast year and grow well the year after. Topics Trees and Shrubs. FAQ Actions. Was this helpful? Yes No 8. Print Tweet Share on Facebook. Thin medium-height trees, too, so light can strike the ground and encourage growth of lower foliage important to ground-dwelling creatures for cover and nesting.
When thinning, remember that large-diameter specimens produce more nuts than those of small diameter. Leave the big ones, in other words, and those that promise to be. Also, retain a combination of both white-oak and red-oak species — the two groups into which all oaks are divided. They're easy to tell apart: Most white oaks have leaves with rounded lobes, or "fingers.
More importantly, red-oak acorns — which take two years to mature and are exceptionally high in fat — don't sprout until the following spring, even when buried. As a result, they're storable. Birds and animals rely primarily on red-oak acorns for their winter stash. White-oak acorns, on the other hand, mature in a single year, are sweeter than the reds, and sprout soon after falling, thus losing their nutty nature — and their nutrients.
Wildlife generally eat them as soon as they find them in the fall. The white-oak acorns are critical for building energy reserves before cold weather strikes. Remember to keep a mix of other types of hard-mast-producing trees — beech, walnut, hickory — if you have them. Likewise, maintain lower-growing vegetation that produces soft mast — dogwood, cherry, wild grape or berries.
Of course, the same principles apply, though on a smaller scale, to back yards and suburban lots. Keep any oaks and other nut trees thinned and healthy, and use a range of shrub species and other landscape plants that bear food. Think mixed nuts; think mixed everything, and wildlife will be the better for it. In nature, after all, variety is not only the spice of life, but also the force that drives it. Established in , OIKOS offers more than 75 species and hybrid oaks, including selections that produce heavy crops of acorns suitable for wildlife or for making flour, as well as other interesting plants.
That is a well-written and informative article. This year, my bur oaks produced acorns for the first time, drawing in wild turkeys. The turkeys scour my yard for grasshoppers and other pests.
I've often wondered if heavy bearing individual trees could be used to graft onto young seedlings to boost production? Even if the cycle cannot be changed, getting younger trees into production quickly would help support wildlife and silviculture practitioners. Thanks for the informative article. Regarding thinning of trees, I suggest the author of this article and all readers who are interesting in learning much more about trees and forests.
Without going in to great detail, he posits that thinning trees isn't good for the rest of trees, plants, and animals in the forest. He strongly suggests, with very knowledgeable and informative argument, that thinning is a bad procedure and has negative impacts not only on the trees, but on the entire ecosystem within the forest.
Why are a very few acorns black in colour. Not many at aii. Is it a fungus? So many "dry fruit" trees here in Northern Virginia. I'd like like to begin "safely" foraging. How can I know which are safe to eat and how to avoid ingesting any on board pests which might cause health issues. The dry fruits of many plants are mistaken for seeds. Actually, the acorn is, botanically, not a seed but rather a dry fruit containing a single seed.
Many dry fruit types are mistakenly called seeds, because they look and act like seeds. Check out the strawberry "seeds. I collected a few acorns while in Salem Oregon and would like to find out if the tree would survive in Minnesota should I get any of them to sprout.
I'm blessed with quite a few oak trees on my rocky little. If I ever needed a reason not to clear the lower end of my lot just for a stupid lake view and if the owls that live there weren't reason enough!!! Anyway, other than those cotton-picking red cedar trees are they good for anything?!?!
I'd like to manage what I've got well, but know nothing about it. Nor do I know anyone who knows about woods management for anything other than timbering profit might be interested in responsible timbering if I ever get my hands on those 20 partially wooded acres, but today is not that day. Where do I learn more about forest management in general and management of nut-producing trees in particular??? Could use some recommendations for places that talk to reasonably intelligent people who probably should have got degrees in ag sci, resource management, or forestry but alas did not.
Emphasis on the did not. Join us for a much anticipated return to the Lone Star State! Earlybird ticket discounts are now available online. While it means a bountiful harvest of tree seeds and fruit, he stressed that it's important that people understand two things about what causes a big mast.
One is that the weather, not the tree, is the driving force behind the harvest. The second is that the same harvest is not necessarily happening in equal proportions across a large blanket of the landscape. Here's Coder's take on how nature doesn't play fairly from one year to the next. It begins with the oak tree's flowers:.
The female flowers on oak and walnut trees are itty-bitty. The internal timers tell the trees to open their buds in the spring after the danger of frost has passed. Once the buds flower, the blooms are open for only a week, during which time they are pollinated by the wind. However, a late frost when the flowers are open stops the flowering process. If that happens, the results show up in the fall with greatly limited nut production regardless of what happens with the weather in the summer and autumn.
On the one hand, even if there's a good spring fruit set, summer droughts can cause acorn fungal problems that can limit production. On the other hand, significant rain during the fall can get the trees ready for a great flowering next spring, Coder said.
This is an example of how nut trees are one year behind in the climate process that affects how much mast they produce, he said. Micro-climates also affect nut production. What's happening in North Georgia is an example of what he means.
It's very localized. Each valley can be a little different, he said. The ridges and passes are where we are seeing the most variability. The bears are coming down into the valleys to search for food because back in the spring the trees that are higher up didn't set fruit. The same localized conditions apply to your neighborhood and to the neighborhoods nearby, Coder said, but probably wouldn't apply to a place miles from where you live.
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