Direct Seeding Acorns

[George]

Mice are just as effective as squirrels at eating planted acorns.

G

 

[Kurt]

I actually bought a acorn planter awhile back and ended up selling as it's faster to use a seedling planter and be a couple years ahead.Oaks will grow faster in tubes than cages

I am pretty certain tubes in our 100 plus degree days may have helped cook them. But I may be totally wrong on that. I do know that with that heat and tubes all seedlings died. The ones in cages only, had maybe a 10% survival rate. So either way its not good lol.

Maybe the acorns will pop up this spring and I can cage them.

 

[yoderjac]

I am pretty certain tubes in our 100 plus degree days may have helped cook them. But I may be totally wrong on that. I do know that with that heat and tubes all seedlings died. The ones in cages only, had maybe a 10% survival rate. So either way its not good lol.

Maybe the acorns will pop up this spring and I can cage them.

I prefer cages for small number of trees, but if I'm going for volume the cost and work can be prohibitive compared to tubes. Tubes have both plusses and minuses. You mention one downside with "cooking" trees. If and how you use tubes depends on your environment. Another issue can be drying out trees. If you don't seal the bottom of the tube, air enters there and as the tube heats in the sun, it acts as a chimney and dries out the tree. I've had tubes both help and hurt me. Tree location and deer densities come into play. If you put a tree in a food plot, deer feeding in the plot will take a nibble from time to time as they feed by and the central leader can get nipped off. Sometime you end up with a bush or in high deer density situations, especially with attractive trees like apples, deer will kill trees if not protected in some way.

To tube or not always depends...