Ozark Chinquapin

I direct seeded all that I got from yoderjac and saved my growing efforts for chestnuts. I’m hoping the fact they don’t have to be cold stratified will help them take off soon. I put them in tubes last fall.
 
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I direct seeded all that I got from yoderjac and saved my growing efforts for chestnuts. I’m going the fact they don’t have to be cold stratified will help them take off soon. I put them in tubes last fall.
I took my ACs out of the fridge a couple weeks ago and put them in a bucket of peat in the barn. Last week, I put down some weed barrier. As soon as the rain stops, My plan is to direct seed nuts with root radicles. I plan to plant them close and cull down the road. Mine often take a bushy form anyway. I plan to slit the weed barrier, plant the nut, and put a tube over it. Hopefully since they have germinated, the failure rate will be low.
 
My family has been getting and planting nuts for the past 5-6 years (I think there is a off year in there where we didn't receive nuts). Our first nuts planted were rough and only 1 or 2 survived, but barely due to us not knowing much. We have 2-3 trees that should start producing this year hopefully, we are going to keep a watch on them.

Our new process which has worked well the last 2 years (this will be our 3rd year on this process) : Nuts delivered to the Texas residents of the family. After the final threat of hard frosts (I shoot for a week of 50+ deg nights), we start them in organic natural starter soil (we like Fox Farms Coco Loco) mixed with some mycorrhizae spores (we like Big Foot brand), and planted in tree start tubes about 12" long. We pull the nuts out of the fridge a week prior to starting them. Once started, water enough to keep the soil damp but not soaked. Let them grow and grow until planting in mid-April (typical time period for last frosts at our farm in Missouri). Our best growing areas have been just over the break of a southern facing hill/side slope that is gradually falling steeper. Also, has some grown trees blocking the western afternoon sun - that way they get morning to midday sun, and not get cooked in the hot afternoon sun. My father is going to take 3 this year, and try to get them growing in a common area of his neighborhood close to his backyard - he wants to "baby" them and see what they can really do.

My next trip to the farm will be in April for turkey season, spring food plotting, and planting chinquapins. I'll update the thread with what we have going.
 
Also, has some grown trees blocking the western afternoon sun - that way they get morning to midday sun, and not get cooked in the hot afternoon sun.
That's an oft overlooked issue IMO.

Young seedlings can handle a lot more drought stress if the hot afternoon sun isn't as much of a factor.
 
Started direct seeding my ACs today. Got 9 in the ground before I tuckered out. Of course this was after the trailer welding project I described, so I was pretty tired before I got started planting the ACs.
 
Another supplier of tubes.




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What tubes do you have the most success with?

I'm looking at getting these. Any recommendations?

https://tree.tube/collections/store/products/miracle-tube-tree-shelters?variant=29054876450934
I have not tubed ACs before. Since they grow native on my farm they don't seem to get extra attention from deer. Since the nuts are free to me and I was starting my trees indoors under lights in a root pruning container system. By the time I planted them, they needed no protection from deer.

I had to buy chestnuts to grow from seed and deer seemed to pay more attention to them. So, I did use tree tubes on chestnuts. I used two kinds, Plantra and Blue Tubes. The Blue tubes were much cheaper but took more time to assemble. Both types worked well for me with chestnuts.
 
I'm finally done. I got 42 germinated ACs direct seeded and tubed:

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What tubes do you have the most success with?

I'm looking at getting these. Any recommendations?

https://tree.tube/collections/store/products/miracle-tube-tree-shelters?variant=29054876450934

Those are the ones that work best for us. Oddly, we accidently installed some upside down with the holes at the bottom, and performed much better than the holes at the top. We now use those almost exclusively for the Chinquapins and install "upside down". Once they start poking out of the top of the tubes, we cage as well.

We tried the green ones and green ones with slits that didn't work well with the Chinquapins, but worked with oaks. We are going to start taking the green ones, and cut them down for rodent girdling when we pull tubes off our 4-5 year old trees in April.

I'm still trying to figure out the best stakes. Fiberglass were great but expensive and tough to find. Regular wood stacks rot too quickly. Plastic deteriorate in the sun too quick. Bamboo has been tough to get quality pieces - half are good / half are bad when ordered. I'm worried about t-posts cutting roots when removing.
 
Those are the ones that work best for us. Oddly, we accidently installed some upside down with the holes at the bottom, and performed much better than the holes at the top. We now use those almost exclusively for the Chinquapins and install "upside down". Once they start poking out of the top of the tubes, we cage as well.

We tried the green ones and green ones with slits that didn't work well with the Chinquapins, but worked with oaks. We are going to start taking the green ones, and cut them down for rodent girdling when we pull tubes off our 4-5 year old trees in April.

I'm still trying to figure out the best stakes. Fiberglass were great but expensive and tough to find. Regular wood stacks rot too quickly. Plastic deteriorate in the sun too quick. Bamboo has been tough to get quality pieces - half are good / half are bad when ordered. I'm worried about t-posts cutting roots when removing.

For most of my chestnuts and other trees, over the years, I've used PVC. I don't like solid stakes, I want mine to bend in the wind so trees don't get brittle. The longer you leave them tubed or staked the more this matters. For my high value trees, I used cages made of cement wire. I like that because it stands on it's own. you can just stake the bottom foot with rebar to keep them from moving. I would then string rope across the cage with 2 strands in each direction near the top. It captures the seedling. This lets the seedling blow significantly in the wind but it is limited by the rope so it does not get too much. I like this method best for valuable trees.

For the trees I tube, I don't like holes near the bottom. This may depend on your location and climate. I found that holes near the bottom can create a chimney effect as the tube heats up and the hot air rises. This can cause small seedlings to dry out. On the other hand, if you have no air flow, you can create humid conditions where mold thrives in the tube.

It is all about figuring out what works best in your specific situation. I would not use tube at all if I was in an area where I did not need to worry about deer browsing. One year I had more chestnuts than I had tubes and planted some with not protection. Years later, those that survived are bushes with no central leader. I doubt they will ever produce nuts, or at least not for many years.

I don't have that concern with ACs. They will bear nuts in just a few years regardless if they take tree or bush form.

For the ACs that I just planted at my retirement property, I just used what was easy. I had a bunch of step-in electric fence posts sitting around from a Gallagher-style e-fence I used years ago. Since I was direct seeding nuts in tubes and there was no digging involved, they were very convenient. At my farm, I often planted ACs with no protection. Although we had high deer densities. we had lots of native ACs, so deer were used to them. They got browsed a bit but generally not killed. Since AC produce nuts in bush form, it was just easier and cheaper to plant them with no protection. At my retirement property, I've got security video cameras on the barn near where I planted these ACs. We had a mast crop failure this year, and I'm seeing up to 15 deer at once around the barn at night eating the WR/Clover/PTT I planted. I know they would paw up these nuts if I did nothing here. I'm hoping after a year or two to remove the tubes.
 
I'm still trying to figure out the best stakes. Fiberglass were great but expensive and tough to find. Regular wood stacks rot too quickly. Plastic deteriorate in the sun too quick. Bamboo has been tough to get quality pieces - half are good / half are bad when ordered. I'm worried about t-posts cutting roots when removing.
1/2" PVC pipe. Buy in 10' lengths and cut in half
 
I use the pvc pipe also, usually use a piece close to the nut. I cut at an angle so it penetrates the soil better, and I drill a few holes in the one close to the nut and fill it with water when watering, it soaks in the ground better and don’t run off.
 
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