Bur Oak question

[j-bird]

I don't have any sawtooth's on my land. May have to add those in, huh?
The bur's that I collect my acorns from produce every year and lots of them. Only problem is i'm growing them from seed, so patience is needed lol.

Any time you talk "oaks" patience is needed....they say good things take time!

 

[NurseryDad]

I think a lot of depends on if you are planting bare root trees, root pruned trees, fertilized, watered, soil, etc. In poorer soil areas my root pruned trees have flat out left the bare root trees in the dust with all things equal. I believe it's mainly due to a root pruned tree having the advantage of many more feeder roots to scavenge nutrients in less than prime situations. With tubes, water, and fertilizer I have many root pruned Burr Oaks push 6ft tall in two growing seasons. Yes you will have a few freaks that will do better, but 6ft is an attainable number in the masses. I will use a 50/50 mixture of chicken poop and triple 13 every spring when they are first getting going. A fist full spread equally into 3 dibble bar holes is sufficient. If you push the boundaries you will have trees growing so fast that they will not be able to support themselves tubed or not, been there, done that! The first year any tree is planted I water it, this keeps me limited to 500 or so trees because I simply don't have time to water anymore in one evening that I get off per week, life!

I think Needmorebrush said it perfectly. Planting smaller trees with better root systems gets the trees off to a huge advantage to bare root or balled and burlapped trees. We have looked a study done by the University of Nebraska where they planted 2 inch balled and burlapped trees that were 10 ft tall at time of planing next to 6' tall RootTrapper bag trees and by year 5 the smaller trees were passing up the larger ones. Not to mention the cost difference between the two types of trees. Bur Oaks were used in the study.

Also a good point to not over fertilize. We can push them all we want to get height but height and mast production have nothing to do with each other. We have had trees in the nursery produce at 6 ft tall-4 years old (I think a lot of that has to do with the air pruning containers and bags) but have been to native stands to collect and a 40 ft tall tree has never produced!

One variety we have been playing around with is a Schuette's oak. A cross between a Swamp White Oak and a Bur Oak. Has a little faster growth habit than a Bur Oak but a lot of the same characteristics of the Bur.

Another good practice when buying oaks in general is making sure the seed is of local provenance...or fairly close. Seed collected from around you should perform better than other places. Nice work on wanting diversity! If there is anything we have learned from foreign pests killing off our trees is that diversity is key. I'd look into other species other than oaks to get planted around as well. Good luck with the project!