Are Oaks In Trouble?

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[christychristina]

I'm in NYS with 20 acres of unplowed farm fields that I've been converting to wildlife habitat land w native trees for 40 years. Been visiting old forest areas & collecting buckets of acorns from beneath trees I feel are exceptional every September at acorn drop. Planting 3 acorns per hole in November. I now have several stands of large red & white oak plus oak lined walking trails. Beloved by many species- mine are getting acorns now. I also do this with basswood and shagbark hickory trees. My land is now a self sustaining treasure.

[timmiller]

I moved an oak seedling out of my woods and into my front yard four years ago and it’s currently my favorite tree to watch grow. So far this spring it has grown 35 inches and isn’t slowing down. I probably won’t get to see it as a mature tree, but it sure is fun to watch and cultivate.

[theskitteringcoyote]

I have a white oak not native to my area, but my Grandad planted it here in my yard in the mid 70s as a sapling, and it finally produced acorns for the first time in 2017 at the ripe age of 41 years old

[wishesandrainbows]

I love my oaks trees, I bought my house specifically because of these beautiful oak trees. They’ve got to be over 100 years old, making this beautiful majestic canopy over my house. Last year the acorns were literally up to my knees. Massive deforestation going on around me, I feel the calling to protect them.

[communitygardener]

We have oaks because we have squirrels. They are hard working acorn planters and we have good luck putting up chicken wire around new seedlings. We also sprinkle a little soil from the base of mature oaks around the seedlings and it helps them thrive.

[MaveRick-prepper]

There is one thing that I started doing this year that I hope will have at least a small impact on the number of white oaks in my area. In the town of Southington CT, there is a white oak that is a descendent of the original Connecticut Charter Oak tree. This year I collected some of the acorns to grow. I plan on transferring the seedlings to sandbags which will allow the taproot to grow to about 2 feet before they will need to be transplanted. When they are big enough, I will contact some of the local towns to see if they would want to plant them around their parks, schools and other public places.

[robertsirois]

Back in the Sixties, here in Maine, we used to burn off fields on a regular basis. Sometimes we would let that peter out into the woods. The fire would remove low growing brush species and ticks were not a big problem. In fact, we rarely worried about ticks.

[LadyLeda]

I used to love walking in the woods around where I live. Touching the trees and watching the undergrowth come up and fruit. There was even wild trillions coming up. Those were the days that I long for. But now I am wheelchair bound from a badly done back surgery, and can not go into the woods without a path. Be thankful for your legs because they can take you places that are wonderful.

[Bob_Adkins]

I live in Louisiana, and several of my mature oaks developed weeping cracks in the bark running from the base to 15-20 feet up the trunk. There was said to be a serious fungal disease spreading, so I thought they would die. Now 15 years later, they seem to have fully recovered. They're resilient trees that just need a little leg up to thrive.

[Nemrai]

Where I live in Norway, for the last few years I've been planting acorns from my town's oldest oak, and a few other oaks. As well as some horse chestnuts. In areas where older trees have been cut down. So far many of them have survived and are doing well. I'm also removing saplings and seedlings of faster growing trees around them so they have a better chance, as often as I can.

[hnfrmnx]

I’m a simple man. I see trees, I click like.

[justanamerican]

Thank you for another informative and well presented video. Recently, I saw a video which was about lands in the Catskill Mt in NYS that were cultured by Native Americans. An old forester floated the idea that where the oaks grew today is where the Native Americans used fire to support their environmental culturing of the landscape. Your video presented parallel ideas on fire and oak establishment in the forest.

[stevenshanko]

Not to mention Beech trees, also in the Fagaceae family, are suffering from the newly discovered Beech Leaf Disease that is absolutely sweeping throughout the state. We were surprised to find it in Delaware County last month, but I have since seen it everywhere in Sullivan, Tioga, Forest, Erie, and Clarion Counties as well.

[TRUTH]

Ugh, my husband and I have literally been pulling up oak saplings all over our yard in my flowerbeds. I should have left them!! Or at least potted them and replanted...will from now on...we have tons of them from our big trees!

[somecooney]

Got my 25 little acres of mature bush. I spend my time chopping out invasives (like buckthorn), caging and helping along any burr oak seedlings I find, clearing sections of brush/junk, and planting hardwoods like walnut and Shagbark hickory, making birdhouses and brush/log piles for animal hidey places.

I planted one white oak, and the rabbits figured out how to get it through the wire?? These Burr oak are the prize of my bush. Plenty of mature red oak and hemlock too. Great trees, but nothing can touch the white oak for being a treasure of the forest.

[gregsmith]

Excellent video, I see this on my central Ky property consisting of mostly chestnut, white & red oaks that are being replaced by tulip poplar, Virginia pine, maple & eastern red cedar. It is interesting that in the early 1970’s a wildfire burned a few hundred acres (including most of my property) which were then clear cut in the 1990’s and in these areas there is a lot of natural oak regeneration, which is definitely not a coincidence.

[louisedunlap]

So grateful you are taking on the topic of fire in the life of oaks and seeking to learn the right role of humans in our beautifully complex ecosystems. I'm most familiar with the fire/oak/human relationship in the central coast area of California where, before my family came here in the 1800s, Indigenous people had figured out how to keep oaks (a staple food source) healthy through use of fire. They understood the complexity of this intervention: their timely gentle fires did more than remove overgrowth that contributes to both over-shading of seedlings and today's mega-fires. Their burns killed disease pathogens like those that cause today's devastating Sudden Oak Death. They nourished the soil and encouraged a whole range of food and medicine species that had evolved with fire. In other words, the human role in ecosystem balance--as they practiced it-- was far more nuanced than simply clearing unwanted trees. It had taken thousands of years of observation to develop in all its complexity and was immediately suppressed by settler fears of fire. (Upon statehood in California, controlled burning actually became a crime.) I was struggling to understand these issues as I wrote "Inherited Silence: Listening to the Land, Healing the Colonizer Mind.". ("Colonizer mind" is partly about thinking you know how to handle a situation when you don't know the half of it.)

[mrose]

Thanks for putting the word out. I planted a native oak recently. It is very slow growing. Leaving it for the next generation. Love you Adam!

[taravamos]

Ash trees, Hemlocks, Beach trees, now oaks. It's so very, very sad.

[mackquack]

I liked the way you handled the video. Glad to hear "I don't know". Stay interested. Stay aware. Stay humble. I enjoy nature. When my observations go against narratives, I am ostracized by herd following nature group individuals. I rarely get defended.