Curious if anyone fertilized an oak for better acorn production to concentrate deer in one particular area.
There is a materials and methods section in the linked paper that discusses how they performed the experiment, how they selected three different sites in order to have replication of treatments, how they studied the trees for 5 years before the experiment, and how they classified the trees into different treatment groups based on previous acorn production. There is going to be variability in any scientific study. Experimental design will account for the variability and allow researchers to draw statistically valid conclusions. For this study on 120 trees at three different sites, the researchers found that "fertilization does not influence acorn production" was not only accurate, but statistically valid.lotta variables in that abstract to consider
Variable production with 6 of 10 years mast failure, variable production of individual trees, variability of soil in different forests
How were these accounted for in the statistical analysis of the results ?
I applaud the efforts of the authors, but doubtful that "fertilization does not influence acorn production" is an accurate statement
bill
Yeah I agree. @TreeDaddy i am a big Craig Harper fan. These studies are hard to do, and far from perfect. But this provides way more information (over 10 years of study) than someone saying “I fertilized an oak and it did great.”There is a materials and methods section in the linked paper that discusses how they performed the experiment, how they selected three different sites in order to have replication of treatments, how they studied the trees for 5 years before the experiment, and how they classified the trees into different treatment groups based on previous acorn production. There is going to be variability in any scientific study. Experimental design will account for the variability and allow researchers to draw statistically valid conclusions. For this study on 120 trees at three different sites, the researchers found that "fertilization does not influence acorn production" was not only accurate, but statistically valid.
I would encourage everyone to read the entire study as there is lot of good information on variable acorn production amongst trees within the study. This characteristic has been studied in other oak species and really should make us all selective in the trees that we plant. You really want a seedling produced from a tree that is an excellent acorn producer and not just a random seedling.
All valid pointsYeah I agree. @TreeDaddy i am a big Craig Harper fan. These studies are hard to do, and far from perfect. But this provides way more information (over 10 years of study) than someone saying “I fertilized an oak and it did great.”
That’s cool to notice. Reminds me of the MSU deer lab work with mineral stumps. Mature tree leaves have very low nutrient content. Cut the tree down and let it resprout, and the new growth is full of minerals.FWIW, On my property in NW Wisconsin I have tons of northern pin oak. They dont get real big and very rarely produce a good crop of acorns. In Dec 22 we had a heavy snow / ice event that broke trunks on many of the oaks. While cleaning up the mess last summer (2023) I noticed that the damaged trees had massive acorn production on the remaining parts of the trees.
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and preferably,native to your areaThere is a materials and methods section in the linked paper that discusses how they performed the experiment, how they selected three different sites in order to have replication of treatments, how they studied the trees for 5 years before the experiment, and how they classified the trees into different treatment groups based on previous acorn production. There is going to be variability in any scientific study. Experimental design will account for the variability and allow researchers to draw statistically valid conclusions. For this study on 120 trees at three different sites, the researchers found that "fertilization does not influence acorn production" was not only accurate, but statistically valid.
I would encourage everyone to read the entire study as there is lot of good information on variable acorn production amongst trees within the study. This characteristic has been studied in other oak species and really should make us all selective in the trees that we plant. You really want a seedling produced from a tree that is an excellent acorn producer and not just a random seedling.
lotta variables in that abstract to consider
Variable production with 6 of 10 years mast failure, variable production of individual trees, variability of soil in different forests
How were these accounted for in the statistical analysis of the results ?
I applaud the efforts of the authors, but doubtful that "fertilization does not influence acorn production" is an accurate statement
bill
The absence of all those variable controls doesn’t then mean the anecdotal evidence of fertilizer working is correct. It would mean the data strongly supports it not working with more robust studies needed. That will never be done because no money in doing another 15 year study.I would tend to agree. It also doesn't mention there how they were able to both exclude animals from eating the acorns in order to measure increases in productivity while simultaneously monitoring depredation of acorns. And how many square meters were counted per tree? Which animals were eating the acorns? How was the area of the crown determined? Was the age of the trees considered? Was the data from the drought years thrown out or included? We're different kinds of fertilizer used? Was there a difference from site to site, or were the effects of treatment uniform across all locations?
The absence of all those variable controls doesn’t then mean the anecdotal evidence of fertilizer working is correct. It would mean the data strongly supports it not working with more robust studies needed. That will never be done because no money in doing another 15 year study.