The Mighty Acorn

[Chainsaw]

Dogghr this is an interesting journey for sure. This is a huge an important subject to us all so take your time.The map is very interesting. Directly to the east of Lake Ontario where I am it shows a slim area of white oaks and then none. The white area marked as no white oaks is on the edge of where Chummers property is. Perhaps he will notice this and comment as to if he has them there or not.

It is published that the white oak does not compete well where the sugar maple flourishes as the sugar maple grows quicker and taller shading the white oak out. I have noticed isolated stands of white oak north of here dominating on shallow soil areas which happen to be devoid of sugar maple. Thus it may not be a cold temperature issue that inhibits its growth up north here.

 

[shedder]

The short story is sugar maple is shade tolerant and oaks are not. Without disturbance like fire, etc. oaks are eventually shaded out. As you go north, cooler temps and wetter areas promote SM. Oaks likely would be here (Acadian Forest) as natives but the wet and lack of fire historically held them at bay, At least, that is what my research has found. There are several papers that describe it.

 

[Charlieyca]

Thanks dogghr, learn something everytime i check on this thread.

 

[shedder]

https://markgelbart.wordpress.com/2...ndary-of-the-last-glacial-maximum-ice-margin/

The Ghost Boundary of the Last Glacial Maximum Ice Margin

Range theory I have not seen before. May be speculation.

 

[dogghr]

Perfect timing Shedder. That is an interesting read. With the retreating glaciers, there was certainly a dramatic climate change that promoted much change in the plant landscape and actions of animals including man. Wait, you mean climate change didn't begin these last few decades? Wow, who would've thot?

Oak species dominated much of the eastern forests during the Holocene epoch. This increase in oak was due to warmer, dryer climate and increase in fire disturbance following the glacial retreat. High levels of charcoal residue is often found along with oak pollen in lake and bog sediments. In addition in time, there would be an increase in the American Indian population which used fire and various agricultural practices that changed the landscape.
Then with the influx of settlers, the magnitude of this change was more drastic with aggressive mass timbering and land clearing,uncontrolled fires, influx of invasive species and insects. These factors and loss of the chestnut tree canopy, loss of white pine forests from logging and fire,
poor oak regeneration from fire suppression, deer browsing and invasive species growth. In 350 years, there is thot to have been a near complete transformation of the landscape.

Before European settlement, oak was the dominant tree species of the eastern forests. Of the oaks, the white oak was king . It has the largest range of any of the oaks in the east covering every state east of the central plains. Many botanist believe that the white made up nine tenths of segments of the eastern forests.
As mentioned by previous posters on here, the white oak was the supreme lumber for construction, flooring and cabinets. It is impervious to moisture so it became important in barrel making.
Very little recruitment of white oak occurred in the 20th century continuing its reduction to this day. In contrast, the red and chestnut oak, which were not nearly important in the presettlement forests, began to dominate in the 19th century forward. It is thot that the white oak, which is slower growing, did not respond as easily to catastrophic episodes as well as other oaks.

Keep in mind, most of the east was made devoid of any timber in a relatively short period of the late 1800s-1930s, of just 40 years. Following this action, many areas remained burning for years as the top soil was depleted. There are areas where 4- 6 feet of soil was lost from these actions. The moist, spongy soil that controlled drought and flood, was lost. The foot thick moss, and 6 foot ferns that you have heard me speak of, would no longer be able to exist. The dramatic understory of the white oak canopy was changed. You have heard me tout that the mature forest was not. at the forest floor level, devoid of growth as we think of mature woods today. Look at pics of old. The towering trees stood in an understory that was nearly too thick for explorers to make their way thru. So perhaps mature forests are not the problem of an healthy understory, but the result of changes that occurred to that forests over the last few hundred years. The mature forest had made a dramatic change in this perfect storm of events.

Keep these things in mind as we continue this journey. Maybe there are multiple ways to manage our forests/habitat for deer? To be continued...

 

[deer patch]

Dogghr...Do you have any pics of the pollination process? Our red oaks are at that stage now or what I call the pollination stage and just wanting to double check to make sure I am right.. I don't remember it being said but our red oaks always pollinate a good few weeks before our whites do. Is this a regional thing or do you see the same thing?

 

[dogghr]

Dogghr...Do you have any pics of the pollination process? Our red oaks are at that stage now or what I call the pollination stage and just wanting to double check to make sure I am right.. I don't remember it being said but our red oaks always pollinate a good few weeks before our whites do. Is this a regional thing or do you see the same thing?

Yes Deer Patch,, reds typically pollinate about 2 wks before whites. Mine are usually doing so late April to Late May depending on elevation. I would expect yours to be 3-4 wks ahead of me.
On the pic, I'll ck to see if I can upload such. Keep us posted on your observations, and maybe a pic or two if you can. Remember the productive acorn producing blooms tend to be in the upper part of the tree. Female top, male bottom.

 

[deer patch]

[/URL][/IMG]

[/URL][/IMG]Dogghr here you go. This is what I call a tassel but may be a flower.

[/URL][/IMG] [URL=http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/DeerPatch/media/Resized_zpshg6hmwgd.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[dogghr]

I knew you'd come thru Deer Patch. Certainly the male flowers and its sex/pollen organs. Ready to rock and roll. Could you see the female flowers? They are much smaller and typically more in the upper part of tree. Thanks for the pic.

 

[deer patch]

Yes I saw the female flowers but nothing low enough to get a picture. I've had a couple of heavy rains so I will have to wait till next year to see what the acorn crop will be. Also temps are supposed to get down to 29 degrees tomorrow night so that may come into to play also.

 

[deer patch]

Dogghr...I saw a squirrel eating the acorn flowers this morning. At first I thought it was eating the leaves but after paying more attention it was eating the flowers and it ate the whole thing. I've never seen that before.

 

[dogghr]

Well I haven't seen that before Deer Patch. Good thing deer can't reach most of them, or their certainly would be no oaks.

Well I'm back. Another oak story.
Presettlement…
Peak white oak distribution was in the oak-hickory, oak-pine, oak-chestnut areas of the mid Atlantic, central Appalachians, Piedmont, central, and midwest states. In the mid atlantic area, the white oak was first or second in predominance of the forests. In piedmont area or PA it was second to black oak. In the ridge and valley segment of PA, it was dominant in the valley floors and shared with chestnut oak and pine on ridge tops. However in the ridge and valley province of WV and southwestern area of VA, white oak dominated valley and ridges.
The midwest, and central states had the white oak as the dominant species growing with black oak and hickory. NE OH, and western NY were dominated by sugar maple and beach.

The white oak is wet-mesic to subexeric meaning across most its area, their are some species that can handle rockier, drier, and more nutrient poorer sights than the white oak can. In contrast, their are species that can handle wetter areas. Such as the red oak, while species as the black oak, chestnut oak can better handle dry areas. Pre settlement, the white oak dominate more lower slopes, valley floors and stream valleys. Distribution of the white oak pre europeon expanded due to recurrent burning. As a result of fire suppression, many former white oak forests on mesic and wet-mesic sites now have red maple, beach and sugar maple.

Are you beginning to see a pattern in the forests you own and their present day makeup, and perhaps what they once were? What trees are dominant and where, on your land? What type of soil are prevalent in that area? When was it timbered, how often, what species selection, what age selection. What is dominant now? Keep observing.

Dendroecololgy. Know what that is? Find out because next will be some analysis done by this process. Let me know if you tire of this process.

 

[dogghr]

Dendroecology, the study of tree rings to deduce growing aspects of a plant/tree. First lets look at how fire could have been a factor in the white oak forests. In a study in two remote areas of MD, a study of old growth cuts showed 42 fires occurred from 1615 to 1958. Fires in the resettlement to early settlement period had occurrence of about every 8 years with 7 of those fires being major burns thur 1900. No major fires occurred after 1900 and no fires occurred after 1960. That in itself is an amazing fact. Do you think fire could be a factor in WO occurrence?

White oak and chestnut oak dominated the recruitment thru the 1800s. This study area included many old growth trees including a 450 yo WO.
After 1900, red oak dominated recruitment probably due to opened canopy partly from loss of the Chestnut tree.
The history of recurring fires thru 1900 attributed to white oak recruitment. The fires probably affected the ecology to preparing the seed bed, opening the canopy, and suppressing red maple and black birch. Large amounts of recruitment of red maple, red oak, chestnut oak, and black birch were shown evident as the chestnut blight killed that canopy 1910-1950.

In these study areas, the white oak recruitment was high during the years of frequent fires before 1900. However, the white was less opportunistic with the demise of the chestnut and opening of the canopy, to red oak and birch and chestnut oak. The reduction, and eventual cessation of fires led to much of the demise of white oak recruitment, while further facilitated influx of the red maple and black birch.

Next… dendroecology of oak in tree fall gaps. Treefall gaps? Could that relate to our hinge cutting actions?

 

[Weasel]

Outstanding thread dogghr, thoroughly enjoying it. Having a farm in NE Ohio where maple is king and oaks are hard to come by, I'm doing everything I can to reintroduce oaks, especially whites. The pin (red) oak has done a decent job of making a comeback on my place but whites are few and far between. My neighbor has a killer stand of SWO that I have permission to take bare root seedlings from.

Squirrels are not the only critters that bury tons of acorns. A single blue jay can bury thousands during its life time and has been credited with helping reforest the landscape after the glaciers receded.

Good read about the blue jays: https://westboroughlandtrust.org/nn/nn161

 

[dgallow]

Thanks for sharing, Shedder. I knew you guys would have knowledge to share. Funny tho of your turkey problem article, that this shows always a variety of interests. Oddly, all these groups complaining of the acorn problem also are contributors over decades/centuries of affecting oak populations by their actions also.

Quote from article…"The only friends of the wild turkeys appear to be the IFW biologists who introduced them and the turkey hunters who want another game source. Few, if any, landowners are in favor of large populations of wild turkeys. At a legislative hearing on a turkey hunting bill in 2013 a procession of orchardists, crop farmers, dairy farmers, blue berry growers and foresters testified strongly that wild turkeys are costing them heavily in lost profits. The only proponent was the IFW biologist!" Unquote.

Any others throw your thots into this discussion about the oak tree???

Wild turkey is a problem for those folks because they did not figure in 'wildlife food take' into their commodity production planning. Holistic planning urges one to estimate and account for 'wildlife forage take' in the ag management plan. For example, we have ~ 60 adult resident deer on the ranch, each adult deer consumes ~1600 lb forage dry matter per year, and there is about 30% use of the same forage plants by both cattle and deer. Thus, 60*1600*0.3 = 29,000 lb forage dry matter / 400 ac = 75 lb forage per acre total land.....or 29000 / 140 ac = 205 lb/ ac open land. During the growing season....wildlife take is a moot point.....however, during the non-growing season (15 Dec to 15 Feb) when green forage availability is oft well below 140 lb dry matter per ac.....deer can have a significant impact on available green forage in open acre land....normally winter annual grasses, small grains, cool season forbs and cool season legumes (forages which are part of the cow's winter supplement) are the ones taking the hit....cost to the cattle operation is less winter grazing days per ac and longer forage recovery time (you can see this visually). Similar planning can be done for any species of wildlife and ag commodity as long as the basic information is known.

The 'white oak' map you posted shows an abrupt halt on the western boundary....which nicely coincides with an annual N/S rainfall cut-off vector of 40-45 inches...you could also argue that line coincides with frequent historic fire use and that 'traditional white oak is not very fire tolerant'. Further, west of that boundary climate is best characterized by 'spotty summer rainfall with common late summer drought'....or as some folks eloquently proclaim 'long term drought interrupted by infrequent flooding'....the debate there I will save for another day. West of that line we have 'white oak' in the form of 'post oak' which is not of suitable quality for 'whiskey barrel staves or ship lumber' and was spared the axes of the ages...but still a white oak nonetheless and would expand the map west another 60-100 mi. To maintain some consistency in hard mast production, post oak stands are best thinned (mechanical w/chemical) to 10-60 BAF density....sparing more soil water for crop tree use during prolonged dry summers or years of less than 40" annual rainfall. However, as you pointed out earlier much hard mast is lost to abscission and such is very common to our area in August as 'early nut drop'. Our 40" rainfall zone has a bit of a 'hard mast insurance policy' compared to the 'traditional eastern hardwood forests'...there is drastic difference in oak species between bottomland and upland sites in the form of water oak, willow oak, bigelow oak, and shumard oak in the former. These species drop acorns each 2 years (thus a year in between for the tree to rebuild reserves). Last year was a 38" rainfall year not much for post oak hard mast.....this year looks to be no different (maybe worse). Pecan production also follows rainfall pattern and a common lull the year after a heavy nut crop....interesting similarity to oaks.

Given our generally 'mild winter climate' I will gladly trade excess oak trees for the 'green items' listed in first paragraph. And if we leave suitable tree density in thinned timber the growing season for green herbaceous plants underneath is spared another 2-4 weeks from first frost and last frost due to tree canopy protection/reduced winter wind chill.

Nice discussion....stop by if you come through on the bikes this year, dogghr!

 

[Charlieyca]

Outstanding thread dogghr, thoroughly enjoying it. Having a farm in NE Ohio where maple is king and oaks are hard to come by, I'm doing everything I can to reintroduce oaks, especially whites. The pin (red) oak has done a decent job of making a comeback on my place but whites are few and far between. My neighbor has a killer stand of SWO that I have permission to take bare root seedlings from.

Squirrels are not the only critters that bury tons of acorns. A single blue jay can bury thousands during its life time and has been credited with helping reforest the landscape after the glaciers receded.

Good read about the blue jays: https://westboroughlandtrust.org/nn/nn161

Thanks for the article, i'm going to borrow that for my wildlife class. I like them to read articles that dont necessarily fit their preconceptions of nature and wildlife. I have a pin oak with very small acorns and this spring I pulled up approximately 1000 sprouts from my flower beds throughout the yard. Very few squirrels so maybe my bluejays and cardinals may be to blame. These beds have very thick pine straw so I doubt the acorns were just dropped there.

 

[OkieKubota]

Thought I would interject some of the white oak regen I see in our property without any fire through here in at least 40 years and I expect much longer than that...

It's even in this shot of where I placed a feeder post...

And oak pollen is not an issue as you can tell by what collected on my boot in a short walk through the leaves...

Every section of our place has white oak and post oak, some areas have a few surviving Shumard (red) oaks that oak wilt didn't claim and we have some blackjack oak in some areas...

Spring and Summertime deer sightings are low in our area but fall and winter our deer sightings drastically increase. I suspect this is why we can have regen like we do.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Charlieyca]

Thought I would interject some of the white oak regen I see in our property without any fire through here in at least 40 years and I expect much longer than that...

It's even in this shot of where I placed a feeder post...

And oak pollen is not an issue as you can tell by what collected on my boot in a short walk through the leaves...

Every section of our place has white oak and post oak, some areas have a few surviving Shumard (red) oaks that oak wilt didn't claim and we have some blackjack oak in some areas...

Spring and Summertime deer sightings are low in our area but fall and winter our deer sightings drastically increase. I suspect this is why we can have regen like we do.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Last weekend we went on a short hike through a state park in the piedmont of NC. It looked eerily like your picture. Mature white oaks with thousands upon thousands of seedlings. I would have loved to stuffed my backpack full of seedlings, but I dont want bad karma everytime I would hunt under one of them!

 

[dogghr]

Outstanding thread dogghr, thoroughly enjoying it. Having a farm in NE Ohio where maple is king and oaks are hard to come by, I'm doing everything I can to reintroduce oaks, especially whites. The pin (red) oak has done a decent job of making a comeback on my place but whites are few and far between. My neighbor has a killer stand of SWO that I have permission to take bare root seedlings from.

Squirrels are not the only critters that bury tons of acorns. A single blue jay can bury thousands during its life time and has been credited with helping reforest the landscape after the glaciers receded.

Good read about the blue jays: https://westboroughlandtrust.org/nn/nn161

That was a good read. Knew of their plantings but didn't know they could carry 5 acorns in their throat/mouth. Cool. And that area of OH you are in was never really much of a oak forests. Perhaps due to the fertile/good ph and rich soils were more conducive of the red maple family.

Wild turkey is a problem for those folks because they did not figure in 'wildlife food take' into their commodity production planning. Holistic planning urges one to estimate and account for 'wildlife forage take' in the ag management plan. For example, we have ~ 60 adult resident deer on the ranch, each adult deer consumes ~1600 lb forage dry matter per year, and there is about 30% use of the same forage plants by both cattle and deer. Thus, 60*1600*0.3 = 29,000 lb forage dry matter / 400 ac = 75 lb forage per acre total land.....or 29000 / 140 ac = 205 lb/ ac open land. During the growing season....wildlife take is a moot point.....however, during the non-growing season (15 Dec to 15 Feb) when green forage availability is oft well below 140 lb dry matter per ac.....deer can have a significant impact on available green forage in open acre land....normally winter annual grasses, small grains, cool season forbs and cool season legumes (forages which are part of the cow's winter supplement) are the ones taking the hit....cost to the cattle operation is less winter grazing days per ac and longer forage recovery time (you can see this visually). Similar planning can be done for any species of wildlife and ag commodity as long as the basic information is known.

The 'white oak' map you posted shows an abrupt halt on the western boundary....which nicely coincides with an annual N/S rainfall cut-off vector of 40-45 inches...you could also argue that line coincides with frequent historic fire use and that 'traditional white oak is not very fire tolerant'. Further, west of that boundary climate is best characterized by 'spotty summer rainfall with common late summer drought'....or as some folks eloquently proclaim 'long term drought interrupted by infrequent flooding'....the debate there I will save for another day. West of that line we have 'white oak' in the form of 'post oak' which is not of suitable quality for 'whiskey barrel staves or ship lumber' and was spared the axes of the ages...but still a white oak nonetheless and would expand the map west another 60-100 mi. To maintain some consistency in hard mast production, post oak stands are best thinned (mechanical w/chemical) to 10-60 BAF density....sparing more soil water for crop tree use during prolonged dry summers or years of less than 40" annual rainfall. However, as you pointed out earlier much hard mast is lost to abscission and such is very common to our area in August as 'early nut drop'. Our 40" rainfall zone has a bit of a 'hard mast insurance policy' compared to the 'traditional eastern hardwood forests'...there is drastic difference in oak species between bottomland and upland sites in the form of water oak, willow oak, bigelow oak, and shumard oak in the former. These species drop acorns each 2 years (thus a year in between for the tree to rebuild reserves). Last year was a 38" rainfall year not much for post oak hard mast.....this year looks to be no different (maybe worse). Pecan production also follows rainfall pattern and a common lull the year after a heavy nut crop....interesting similarity to oaks.

Given our generally 'mild winter climate' I will gladly trade excess oak trees for the 'green items' listed in first paragraph. And if we leave suitable tree density in thinned timber the growing season for green herbaceous plants underneath is spared another 2-4 weeks from first frost and last frost due to tree canopy protection/reduced winter wind chill.

Nice discussion....stop by if you come through on the bikes this year, dogghr!

Should've know you had the food factor calculation on your place, D. That is cool stuff, and agree more of factor in areas with mod-harsh winters.
Post oak is more adaptive to lower nurtrient conditions that the socalled white oak, both of the same family. It and the WO are very fire retardant in mature stages. But as you alluded, the once frequent fires and heavy grazing of the plain's grasses kept new growth of most trees at bay. Even Leopold refers to such in a section of the Sand County Almanac which I happened to reread the past few days.

And I have similarities to the rainfall amount. My farm is on the lee side of the Appalachian range and yearly rainfall is about 36 inches, most of which comes in the summer months. The windward side of the range in the more mountain counties are about 60"/yr. While I am not in the true Shale Barrens of the Appalachians, I border that area and certainly have some aspect of that on my farm where black oak dominates. And of course which is why as you, we see abscission of acorns in Aug/Sept especially in very dry years such as '16. And I think opening the canopy of your post oak works well as much for less competition for water as it does for the sunlight.

This whole thread is showing, as anyone who has followed me over the years, that a mature forest was not the desert at ground level, devoid of undergrowth as we think of forests today. Indeed it was a thicket browsed my a multitude of browsers and grazers from buffalo to elk to whitetail. If it had been the open understory we think of as today, then the early explorers would have marched thru them at will instead of hacking thru with axes and saws as history shows.

Won't make it to the Sooner state this year as am headed back to Idaho on the Harleys. Maybe we can meet in Nashville for a couple cold ones and the hit the Opry. Take care of those red cattle.

 

[dogghr]

With heavy rains the past two weeks here, it will be interesting to see how the WO acorn production is come fall. The reds as we have talked, pollinate about 2 weeks before whites. Since they were in a dry period for us, I would suspect red oak production may be better than the white oaks. As I said, in past mainly watched for freeze temps that might affect acorn production, but looking back over the years, I think moisture has had more affect as studies have shown. I know while looking at my oaks this past few weeks, it is def hard to evaluate flowers that are 100+ ft in the air. Be just another thing for me to watch on the landscaped thru this year.

Treefall gaps. Much like the segmented hinge cutting many of us do if done aggressively. In the presettlement forests, natural openings occurred by way of storms and fire. These openings allowed recruitment of over story in greater radial growth of trees as well as recruitment sub story of new growth. Thus the mature forests was actually in stages of uneven age segments.

One study done early 1990's in VA in an xeric sight was in a large section of forest that had repeated single tree windthrow gaps created by severe storms that year. Overstory growth began late 1890's with increased radial growth and recruitment of white and scarlet oak into the over story. At the same time recruitment of understory was mainly white oak with some black and sweet gum. Some maple recruitment occurred in the study area after 1950.

The uniqueness of this study area was the unstopped white oak recruitment with very little maple or beech. The dryness/xeric aspect of this study prevented recruitment of typical oak replacement species, allowing white oak perpetual recruitment. Some of the understory whites in the study area were a century old. Thus these gaps thru out history were probably maintained in white oak by virtue of the over story growth and understory recruitment that was then maintained by fire. Based on the lack of white oak recruitment in most 20th century forests, this pattern of gap phase regeneration is no longer being repeated.

White oaks are prevalent over a broad range of habitat, including drought areas. It has evolved with periodic understory burnings and is a transitional to later successional species in the absence of fire. Thus they possess adaptations for drought and fire but not for competing in a closed forest understory dominated by more shade tolerant species.

I hope you are seeing how our manipulation of forest structure can affect its makeup for decades, maybe centuries to come. Perhaps increasing just any old stem count will not in the long term give us the oaks we and the deer love?

Next , a little closer look at white oak adaptations or as they like to say, the ecophysiological attributes. The first of which will involve fire adaptations. Then drought. Then understory tolerance. And then the test for you students will come.

Chime in anytime you wish. Pics are always good too.