The Year of The Oaks

[Kurt]

Thanks to this site I had some success finally in 2025 on bur oaks in a normal moisture year vs drought. Here area few pics from last weekends trip to mow and weed whack around the babies. These were grown from acorns planted late fall 2024. All 50 or so previous seedlings of shumard, bur and chinkapin died in previous years droughts. I have around 15 bur oak seedlings doing pretty well.

Thanks to even more help from members on this site I am now planting DCO acorns and sawtooth acorns this fall. It takes a bit to prep sites for the acorns but it sure is fun to check on them in May and see seedlings coming. My neighbor in KS thinks that our luck will be better this route thanks to a more complete root system. I'm not arguing.

Thanks to these kinds of threads and some much needed moisture, 2025 was a successful year of the oaks. Here is to spring of 2026 and more baby oaks.

 

[KSQ2]

Another oak identification question. We picked up a bunch of acorns, reds and whites, at a rest area in Iowa. These came off of two of the pointed leafed oaks. The acorns on one of them are a little bigger. The biggest identifier is the stripes on the nut; the stripes are kind of washed out in the pics, but much more pronounced with the naked eye. Any ideas what kind of oaks these are?

 

[Native Hunter]

Another oak identification question. We picked up a bunch of acorns, reds and whites, at a rest area in Iowa. These came off of two of the pointed leafed oaks. The acorns on one of them are a little bigger. The biggest identifier is the stripes on the nut; the stripes are kind of washed out in the pics, but much more pronounced with the naked eye. Any ideas what kind of oaks these are?
View attachment 30432

I would say Pin Oaks.

 

[T-Max]

Pin for sure on the right. If the other two were off of a different tree, they could be small black oaks. Ours here have stripes like that.


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[KSQ2]

Thank you fellas, I was hoping for pin and/or black oaks. We don’t have any of those on the Massey.

 

[KSQ2]

We picked up enough that I’m planing to just direct send them. Do the pin/black acorns need to be cold stratified? If not, will it hurt them to keep them in the bag in the fridge with the whites?

 

[Flatiron75]

Pointed-leafed trees are in the red oak family, and they naturally cold-stratify outdoors over winter. So, I'd cold stratify them over winter if they're pins or blacks. White oak family acorns will put out root radicles right away when they hit the ground, which will naturally burrow down into the soil to start a tap root. White oak acorns don't need cold stratification, since nature gets them started immediately as soon as they fall.

 

[Native Hunter]

A delivery driver saw all these acorns in my yard and asked me if I knew how many years it took an oak to start bearing. It only took me 23 minutes to answer his question.

 

[Native Hunter]

Sawtooths still dropping on Halloween. Trick or treat.