yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I'm certainly not deity or even an expert on the subject, but here are my experiences for what they are worth:
I started planting some bare root sawtooth many years ago. They were one of the first wildlife trees I planted. I stopped planting them for attraction because they all dropped the nuts in September and they were usually gone long before our archery season which starts in early October. I have since learned that there is more than one strain of sawtooth oak and some drop later. So, if you are planting them for attraction make sure whatever trees you collect nuts from are dropping during the period you want them. Like most trees, sawtooth are not completely true to seed so you will get some variance, but you will maximize the likelihood of getting drop times when you want for attraction this way.
Another place sawtooth are a good fit is for feeding deer but this requires volume. They help balance the native red and white oak mast crops. They are very consistent producers. In our area anyway, native oak mast production can be feast or famine. In years when we have a mast crop failure, sawtooth can provide an important high carb food source going into winter.
Personally, I have not grown any from nuts. The only oaks I've grown from seed are Dwarf Chinquapin Oaks. They seem to take to root pruning really well, but we are not in an arid region. I can't say for sure if this will help Bill but in my experience, success with root pruned trees has more to do the with the root ball size at the time of planting than anything else. In my climate, trees planted directly from 18s don't do well. Many die and those that survive don't thrive. I get much better results planting from 1 gal RB2s. Very few of these die and a good number thrive. When I plant from 3 gal RB2s, just about every tree survives and many thrive. My theory here is this: A root pruned tree is much more efficient at using water and nutrients from the area cover by its root ball because of the much larger of terminal root tips. However, it can only use nutrients and water from the area the root ball can reach. The root ball from a 1 gal RB2 is about 6.5 times the volume of an 18 cell and the root ball from a 3 gal RB2 is about 4 times the volume of a 1 gal RB2.
With root pruning, we are trading off a deep tap root for a dense root system and faster top growth. In most cases anchoring is not really an issue. In arid regions access to the water table can be. If the top several feet of soil dry out and the tree does not have a tap root long enough to get to the water table the tree will suffer. I'm not sure that I would use root pruning in arid regions unless you provide supplemental water. Folks in very arid regions do fine with root pruned trees around the house that are watered when needed. However, for wildlife trees, I don't think I'd recommend root pruning containers. I think direct seeding may be a better option but it still probably requires supplemental water until established for maximum growth.
As far as sawtooths go, while I don't have first hand experience growing them in an root pruning container system, I would expect them to perform similar to the many other tree species I've tried. Some are a bit harder than others but I haven't run into any yet that have been failures. The jury is still out on pawpaw. I understand they are very hard to transplant and I provided no after care. They did very well while in containers but were problematic when planted in the field last spring. Many lost their leaves during the summer. I'll know more this spring after green up in terms of how many died and how many just went dormant early to adjust to the new environment.
Thanks,
Jack
