Ha. We picked up (midnight drive-by grab) six bags of leaves and yard "waste" from the town near where we live this spring. In two of the bags were damp oak leaves, and come to find out, acorns! To make a long story short, when we finally opened the bags, the acorns had sprouted and we now have a very small forest of oaks about an inch tall putting down roots in the shade of the greenhouse! These acorns had gone through multiple freeze-thaw cycles in the damp leaf litter over the winter and stayed consistently moist ... then germinated by themselves. I would imagine that simulating the cold cycle through stratification (say in your fridge), then providing a warm, damp place to germinate would do the trick.
According to Henry David Thoreau the best way is to wait for spring and find the piles of acorns that the squirrels made in fall. Most will compost to help 1 acorn grow into an oak. Dig around the area trying not to disturb the pile, and then transplant into an area with similar light conditions. However, that is a NE America thing. Your observations may differ. :giggle:
I read somewhere recently that the little acorns have a beneficial relationship with soil mycrozstuff from fallen leaves from oaks,im wondering if this is dependant on varietys i do keep my acorns in fridge in moist leaves also trying coconut husk oaks have a 4:1 root to top ratio just ordered 25 bare rootd swamp oak onley 430 vatietys to go a truffell grower suggests additions of lime im not sure if this is founded ,i suspect it is just a blanket prescription My dad is planting 74trees for his age he has dug each hole 1ft by hand ,left soil aside hole and will plant bare rooted trees in july august the last few years he has used builders plastic as a weed deterrant,,,, i would suggest you can see his place on google earth
I really apologize for not replying in this thread ealier, but I've been so busy out in the bush photographing and documenting some things in the Southern California backcountry. It's an absolute must to inoculate with mycorrhizae, especially a blend with species Pisolithus tinctorius (often referred to as PT Mycorrhizae). I use to purchase my mixes from Plant Health Care Inc (PHC), whose chief scientist I learned most of my education beneficial fungi was Dr Donald Marx who pioneered much of the research for the U.S. Forest Service prior to his association with PHC. PT Mycorrhizae is in the wilds there in Australia and colonizes most all Eucalyptus and Wattles. It has the ability to interconnect different species for which it shares a host specific relationship to. This is beneficial in the sense that good community planting will allow various interconnected plants to share various alkaloids and other chemical compounds that each manufactures that the others don't. This appears to increase the health of the entire plant community. TomVolk wrote a short piece on the fascinating effects of lightning on Truffle development when here referred to the folklore shared by Bedouins in the Israeli Negev and truffle hunters in Morocco, claiming that truffles will grow where lightning strikes during thunderstorms. https://botit.botany.wisc.edu/toms_fungi/more.html Although he speaks of lightning from Thunderstorms possibly restructuring gaseous nitrogen and turning it into something water soluble which could then be taken up by plants which triggers the growth explosion often seen afterwards, I believe there is far more in creating a wetter water through physics which make the water molecule clusters much tinier from 70 to 80 to a cluster to 6, 7 or 8 to a cluster. These clusters are known to form hexagonal crystal structures which actually give an energetic electrical current which excites growth and ,also allows for more rapid hydration through tiny fungal mycelial strands or hyphae networks many of which may only be seen through magnification. Such tiny infrastructures would greatly benefit from water molecule structures that were themselves minuscule which would facilitate rapid absorption of H2O. In my own experience when collecting Truffles in Anza CA mountains around Oaks and Pines, I would wait for the first monsoonal rains in summer and collect truffles two weeks later and have success every time. I wish more science could be researched on this phenomena. Unfortunately in the past, I have only heard it referred to as African Folklore or Roman & Greek Myths, but clearly many are well aware of the effects by first hand observation. Sometimes intellectual arrogance hinders otherwise important research. Are you referring to Swamp White Oak (Quercus bicolor) from the North American Mid-West ? They tend to like acid boggy soils where they come from. I'm not sure about this. Swamp Oaks don't do well in a alkaline soil condition as they develop chlorosis in high pH (very alkaline) soils. Although there has been some studies showing that acid rains have dissolved valuable calcium from Forest soils in North America and test research has shown benefits to pines and firs with the addition of mineral rock containing calcium for which Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials. In the midwest state of Iowa where my dad comes from farming country, the farmers there use to mine limestone, crush it and spread it in the fields prior to planting. This was before the commercial Chemical companies came with their 'Green Revolution' wares. Try shredded wood and tree bark mulch as a weed barrier. It has always worked great for me, plus the mycorrhizae will break it down and feed it back to your trees. The break down also uses generous amounts of nitrogen to which the bacteria utilize and that takes nutrients away from most Weeds (most are none mycorrhizal ruderals which require nutrient rich bottomland soils to thrive), and will be hindered by lack of readily available nutrients. I've spent my vacation planting Engelmann Oak on my brother's 10 acres in the San Diego county high country. These Oaks are the toughest for hot dry areas and have a beautiful blue green colour. They are also semi-deciduous and even drought stress deciduous if need be, which allows for that tough survival. They are the only trees that will colonize a steep southern slope facing direct intense sunlight in San Diego Co. Engelmann Oak (Quercus engelmannii) an Often Ignored Native in the Landscape -
how do you propose i innoculate; i have raked up some leaves ( they already smell like mushrooms) and added some poo , im thinking i will use this semi compost in my planting recon i might plant next month just trying the swamp oak for a novelty ill recearch the engelmann oak when my data speed is back in a few days TA
There s an oak from Arizona called Emory Oak (Quercus emoryi) which is native not only AZ, but New Mex, Texas and northern Mexico. Another gem about these oaks is that the acorn is already sweet and ready for eating without any leaching of the tannins so common in other acorn nuts. They endure well in hot dry conditions. Love the flavour of acorn meal. This may help you out. I don't depend on any moldy leaves for mycorrhizal inoculation, but I did write about inoculating my Mum's Pecan Tree which started out slow for the first few years until I inoculated on my last visit, then it exploded straight up with tall growth and nuts. They also endure and actually thrive in heat. I purchased my inoculent from Mycorrhizal Applications Inc's Horizon Irrigation Supply - Pecan Tree Volunteer Soaring High Wonderfully Skyward, Thanks to Mycorrhizal Applications
He is a pic I took of Engelmann Oak just about a month ago on my visit home to San Diego County California Now the interesting thing about this tree was that when I was collecting acorns once during a season of heavy wet winters and good monsoonal summer moisture, the ground in Fall was still moist and saturated from both summer and winter rains. Almost most all acorns were sprouting, getting a sort of head start advantage from the wetness. That younger tree to the below left from the large mother tree is one of those sprouts. I love this oak, it's one of the most picturesque and seems to self-prune like a Sycamore. --
Just another hillside image with Engelmann Oak woodlands on a southern slope where other trees won't grow so well. Santa Ysabel, California
when shuold i plant evergreen oak seedlings??? YOU are right about the hickory trees they are great wish i could get some stock
Why not try sowing some pecans? Not sure they'd like the tableland winters though. Perhaps one of the other hickories would be better suited but pecans are easy to get.
Hey Andrew no luck on getting you some cork or english oak unfortunately -- the area of the botanic gardens where these trees are are kept spotless, all fallen nuts are cleaned up within a few days. I'll be back there next year, same as I was last year.
TA for trying! I think that is why st Francis spent so much time on his knees I found some carob,albizzia and an artemesia in Manilla yesterday
This year looks like being a big mast year I even have have a 5 year old Q robor with lots of acorns, yield on gleditsias is down though! What does it look like down south>>?????