Hope I don't get banned for this!!!

[bigbendmarine]

Ok, maybe a bit joking in the subject header... but... also worry my post will be a bit blasphemous though PROMISE that's not my intention.

If honest, I'm hoping and fully expecting to learn / get schooled regarding my ignorance on the subject.

Subject? Trees from acorns.

Few years back I acquired a bag of sawtooth acorns and never found the time to research the best method for growing them / never really gained education on rootmaker kits, growing by artificial light, etc. Sure it helps I live in North FL and we only typically have a handful of days with frost... but with that said, here's my uber-crude method of raising saplings... after keeping the acorns in the frig over the winter I filled old planters with mix of my area dirt, some potting soil, and a bit of compost and then stuck acorns in the dirt just a couple of inches apart from one another with about 20 acorns per planter.



Have now done the same thing with live oak acorns from my yard as well as some acorns pulled from local parks.

Live oaks are funny in that they grow super slow topside / whereas from past experience trying to dig saplings up know that's not the truth under ground. Whereas all other oaks hav 12' to around 30" of growth, the live oaks are averaging more around 6' to 8" of topside growth.



Acorns I'm most sentimentally attached to are these 2 swamp chestnut oak acorns... taken from the belly of a 10 point buck I killed this past fall!



I refrigerated them for the heck of it, and was super happy to see them come up. If can keep alive and nurse them as saplings once planted enough to make it, I think it'll make for a heck of a story for someone hunting them years down the road.


As for root development, at least with the sawtooths (got my initial batch 2 years ago so have planted the first crop of saplings) I was worried the first year I went to separate them that I'd have a mess on my hands with twisted roots and / or really weakly rooted saplings. Quite to the contrary, they looked pretty good and ALL survived and grew well. Average first year growtha after replanting saplings saw them poking out of 5' tall tubes by the end of summer.



So with all the above shared, have I just been lucky being in North FL? Asked another way, what advantages do using rootmaker kits offer -- strictly a higher number / density of roots, and if ultimately my trees do well did I lose anything, say for example even more initial growth that might have been possible the year after replanting the saplings?

Quite open to learning and admitting my ignorance from the get-go on this post!

 

[bigbendmarine]

Should add / confess one thing... first crop of sawtooths saplings I planted I got most in the ground before they leafed out again and my survival rate was darn close to 100% on those... but tried planting some after leafing out just a bit and made world of difference with survival dropping down to about 50%. Just add that for what it is worth.

 

[H20fwler]

Very nice! I've done the same putting a dozen stratified chestnuts in a three gallon pot and transplanting them in the woods months later. I never get hung up on the "proper" way to raise anything, the main thing is that your doing it and it's working for you...well done brother!

 

[John-W-WI]

Looks like you did great. Probably no need to change to rootmakers with the success you are having.

Rootmakers will only improve your results and the long term health of the tree in it's first few years of growth.

When started in rootmakers the trees will be more prepared to grow and will experience less shock when transplanted. With your longer growing season it probably isn't as important as it is up north. We only get 4 or 5 months (max) to start and transplant in a given season.

I would keep doing what you are doing if I were you!

-John

 

[TreeDaddy]

Don't give up on the baby live oaks

I have a few in containers at home in their second growing season and they made a dramatic leap in top growth

I may keep them another growing season at home before taking them afield

I enjoy learning how others grow baby trees

bill

 

[j-bird]

I grew chinkapins in the same way you did. They grew fine - but planting oaks in the woods doesn't work to well (direct seeded or transplanted). I grew sawtooths in 2 liter bottles earlier this spring and they germinated well and have done fine. I have not used a "rootmaker" or started them inside under lights either thus far. My sawtooths have been mostly planted in better sites with more sun and have done fine. So I sure have no place to tell you your doing anything "wrong". Biggest thing I saw is the root circling which can be bad. Oaks have such a long tap root. I figure you do what works for you and your methods and budget. My only other issue was the damn squirrels trying to steal the acorns......I ended up putting my sawtooths in a wire dog kennel to keep them safe.

 

[Bill]

Growing the two from your bucks belly is pretty neat.

 

[yoderjac]

I'd say the key benefit from rootmakers is the root pruning. If you use large enough containers so the tap root never hits the bottom and circles before you transplant, you should be fine. The trees should grow very similar to a direct seeded tree. The problem comes in when you have a fast growing tree. Chestnuts are known for this with a large amount of energy stored in the nut. If the roots begin circling or J-hooking the tree will look fine and grow fine for a number of year. It can look great when young. It can be 5 years or more down the road when those circling roots grow enough constrict themselves. Suddenly the tree becomes unbalanced where top growth is much greater then the root support because of the constriction. These trees don't usually die unless it is sever, but they don't grow or produce to their potential. Also, keep in mind that you can grow trees in regular smooth containers and simply hand prune the roots at planting time . The down side to this is the tree converted a lot of energy to produce the roots you are cutting off. It takes the tree a while to recover just like planting a bare root tree. With the root pruning containers (rootmaker or whatever brand), the root is pruned when it hits the air and the energy goes into producing more roots upstream of the prune. So, when you plant a tree from one of these containers, instead of a year of sleep, one of creep, and a year of leap, there is almost no recovery time. The trees begin growing almost immediately.

So, while there are advantages to using root pruning containers, that is not the only way to do it. The key is making sure you don't have j-hooking or circling tap roots. I don't see that in you picture. So, as long as you get your trees in their final location before you get circling or J-hooking, your trees should perform like a direct seeded tree that got lots of care.

Thanks,

Jack

 

[John-W-WI]

^^----- Jack said it much better than I did.

"what he said"

 

[bigbendmarine]

Awesome explanation, Jack. Very much appreciate it! Thankfully planted the sawtooth acorns in a pretty deep pot and didn't see any j-hooking or root circling.

I'm itching to see how much root growth variation I'll see with the live oaks and swamp chestnut oaks in comparison to the sawtooths. Crossing my fingers they don't make it to the bottom of their pots.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Growing the two from your bucks belly is pretty neat.

Definitely have a much stronger desire to ensure I do all I can to baby those until they're safely established. Toughest thing about having just the 2 to work with is picking the precise spots where I want to plant them for the years to come. Can pick up more acorns off the ground in the future, but wouldn't bet on planting belly harvested ones again! Still chewing on locations at the moment.

 

[Tap]

Growing the two from your bucks belly is pretty neat.

You said it!
I can't help answer any of your questions marine, but I had to comment on where the acorns came from.
I hope they flourish into a beautiful scrape tree that produces cool trail cam pics in the early years and then bumper crops of acorns for your future deer and grandchildren in later years.
Cool people on this forum! Good luck with it.

 

[Bill]

Bigbend,
Hope you're out of state by now. If you're staying in Florida baton down the hatches and stay safe!!!

 

[bigbendmarine]

Bigbend,
Hope you're out of state by now. If you're staying in Florida baton down the hatches and stay safe!!!

Bill, if it were predicted to skirt westward by the keys into the gulf we would likely be evacuating, but with most models now predicting an East coast hit we're plugging along for now and can wait to at least Saturday afternoon to see what it actually does further south before coming our way around Monday.

We're 200 miles to the west of Jacksonville and when Matthew skirted by the East coast last year we actually had a relatively calm pretty day over our way. IF, and stress IF, it goes along the east coast we'll likely see a few outer bands whip by with a few sheets of driving rain, and then I'll be picking up small limbs and burning them for a day or two but don't look for much worse. Wish the darn thing would just hook even a bit more east and avoid impacting ANY US coastal area.

 

[bigbendmarine]

Above shared, each time a storm comes the least bit close I'm on http://spaghettimodels.com/ and https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/ like white on rice seeing how each 8am / 11am / 2pm / 5pm / 8pm / 11pm update changes the forecast models. The tropical tidbits site is pretty cool in that you can run / create gifs for the various different forecasting models. Just use the "Hurricane" pull down tab on the page, let it load the page as well as the small hour boxes (they change color as they load), hit the "Forecast GIF" button, and then set the end hour range you want the gif to run through and voila, you can watch each of the animated forecast paths and see the time frames with each animated pic as well. MUCH MORE informative than the MSM's EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE / fear sells pitches and even NOAA's generic path post that lumps all the varying forecasts into a single projected path. Seeing the varying paths lets you see how much variance in scientific opinion is actually out there as well as seeing how the various weather fronts around the storms are predicted to possibly steer the storms.

 

[Big Snow Man]

Good luck BigBend take your trees and hunker down

 

[bueller]

Storm surge and wind damage would be catastrophic if it makes landfall west of Miami, but I think it's going to ride up just off the east side and FL is going to dodge a big bullet.