Grafting Oak Trees

mattpatt

mattpatt

Well-Known Member
Going along with my other thread on grafting Chestnuts I got to wondering about grafting oaks. Is there anyone one here with experience doing this? I have some Concordia oaks that I would like to take some graft wood from and try to graft on to a bur oak seedling or something similar.

Matt
 
Ive always heard grafting oaks is near impossible but I have zero experience grafting anything. I too would be curious about this.
 
I've heard the same thing too but it sure would be nice to turn several of the water oak trees that are growing down near my food plot into something more desirable.


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mattpatt said:
I've heard the same thing too but it sure would be nice to turn several of the water oak trees that are growing down near my food plot into something more desirable.


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Click to expand...
Matt,
I've got a copy of an old book, Tree Crops a permanent agriculture by J Russell Smith.
You can probably find an online version.
Anyway, on his chapter about Oaks he talks about the benefits of grafting Oaks as opposed to planting them and shows several examples.
It's an awesome read, I feel, for anyone managing land for wildlife. It's wrote with growing crops to manage cows, hogs, and such for people, but works just as well when we substitute deer!
I plan on trying this year just as I would for pecan. Wait till they are leafing out then bark or flap graft and see how they do.

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Contact DLH.....he's done it. I am actually sending him some scionwood from SWO and Burrs around here to try.

CAS
 
I've grafted dco oak onto bur and overcup oaks last spring. Some of them took but I didn't get them in the ground in time so they didn't make it. I plan on top working some dco bur and swo onto white oaks this year as mentioned by CAS. I think the way to go will be as Merle suggests that gives a lot of roots to heal that union up. I will also be repeating my bench grafting attempts with some leftover scions. I have found it hard to get everything I graft in the ground with my 2yo that's why I am leaning towards top working with bark grafts. There are some studies with grafting swo for earlier acorn production that's why I've chosen dco bur and swo the last two seem like the earliest to bear from the right genes. You mentioned water oaks? Are they a type of red oak? The little information I found on reds is that they have some incompatibility issues even grafting within the same type of red oak. I know this is still pretty broad but that's what little I know which isn't much.
 
DLH - Water oak is in the red oak family. I'm with Matt, I have a lot of water oaks I'd love to turn into something better, they seem to be quite prevalent in the south. Keep us updated with what you find out. I'd definitely be interested.

I'm clearing out a section of my property in a few weeks and have identified a number of younger white oaks I plan to keep. I may just attempt to do some grafting with SWO to see how it works out. Worth a try, hadn't even considered it until I saw this thread.




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I did not realize water oak was a red oak so my plan probably won't work. I would think you'd need to at the very least graft reds to reds and whites to whites.

I have some water oak that are 2-3 inches in diameter and I was planning on bark grafting some.

I do have several bur oak seedlings that I can experiment with so I'll probably do that.

Harvested some Concordia scion wood this afternoon from trees in my yard and have plenty more I can gather wood from out where we hunt. All of the trees came from MDC back when they had them for sale a few years ago.

Matt


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Maybe we should keep this thread updated for oaks. If you guys have some water oaks you don't mind losing might be worth a try putting some reds on top of them just to see.
 
I don't mind testing but I'm in need of some graft wood of a more desirable red to try. All I have are the water oaks and blackjack oaks. Both are slow growing and slow to produce. We had several acres mulched last year with a forestry mulcher and had the guy leave any oak he could find. So I have several that are small in caliper that I think would be perfect for a bark graft and now that they've been released will probably start growing pretty good. If anyone has some graft wood they'd be willing to share from a Shumard or similar oak I'd be interested and would pay you for them. I have a couple of small Shumards that I planted a few years ago and may be able to get a stick or two from them but I'd like to get some wood from an older tree of possible.

Good discussion and I agree with DLH. Lets keep this thread going and post our results.

Matt
 
I'll put mine up. I plan on trying swamp chestnut oak on white oak this year.
I do have one that I tried to t-bud last fall though my confidence in it is pretty low.
I had to force the bark to slip.
I did several black walnuts the same day that did great.
Maybe the timing on oak is different, something to play with for sure.
It may be better, if we want to try just a bud, to try and June bud them.
They will either make it or fail, never know till I try.

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If someone has some graft wood from a nuttall oak, I'd definitely try on some of water or pin oaks.


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Matt - a little off topic, but how did the mulching turn out for you? I'm planning to have one out in a few weeks to get rid of a pine thicket and release the oaks inside of it. Did the mulch keep the regrowth back and is it starting to break down?


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I think all I would have is red oak I'm not very familiar with the reds. I have something in the fence row at my house but not sure what it is outside of some type of red oak.
 
144 said:
Matt - a little off topic, but how did the mulching turn out for you? I'm planning to have one out in a few weeks to get rid of a pine thicket and release the oaks inside of it. Did the mulch keep the regrowth back and is it starting to break down?


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We just had it done last fall so haven't had much time for regrowth but we have noticed some green briar already poking up in a few areas. We'll know more later this spring I suppose. As far as the actual mulching goes it worked out pretty good. It's an excellent way to release desired trees that have been overrun by undesirables, briars, etc. I just had him leave every oak and persimmon he could easily identify and mulch the rest. My plan is to go in and plant oaks and chestnuts to fill in the gaps and use the mulch that's already on the ground to my advantage. I'm sure we'll have to spray to keep the briars from coming back.

Matt


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That's great to hear, kinda my same plan as well. Planning to direct seed chestnuts and sawtooths in some of the openings. Went through and flagged the oaks I wanted to keep this past weekend, even found a couple of chinkapins that I didn't know were there. :)

Thanks for the feedback!


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mattpatt said:
I don't mind testing but I'm in need of some graft wood of a more desirable red to try. All I have are the water oaks and blackjack oaks. Both are slow growing and slow to produce. We had several acres mulched last year with a forestry mulcher and had the guy leave any oak he could find. So I have several that are small in caliper that I think would be perfect for a bark graft and now that they've been released will probably start growing pretty good. If anyone has some graft wood they'd be willing to share from a Shumard or similar oak I'd be interested and would pay you for them. I have a couple of small Shumards that I planted a few years ago and may be able to get a stick or two from them but I'd like to get some wood from an older tree of possible.

Good discussion and I agree with DLH. Lets keep this thread going and post our results.

Matt
Click to expand...

Hey Matt, I've got some Shumard you could have some scions from. I've actually got several so you can have as many as you like. I'm not too far from you, I live in Rockwall so you could come collect some yourself if you prefer or I could ship them to you.
 
TexOk said:
Hey Matt, I've got some Shumard you could have some scions from. I've actually got several so you can have as many as you like. I'm not too far from you, I live in Rockwall so you could come collect some yourself if you prefer or I could ship them to you.
Click to expand...

Tex,

Thanks for the offer! I don't know when I'll have time to make it down that way. If you don't mind collecting some for me and sending them this way I'd be willing to pay you for them. It would be awesome to be able to convert some of these water oaks over to shumard. With already established root systems of the water oak trees I bet the new grafts would really grow well if you could ever get the graft to take.

Matt
 
Any tips on collecting scion wood? I'm new to grafting so I'm not sure exactly how to go about it.
 
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