White Oak Acorns: outstanding hybrids

[OakSeeds]

To avoid high-jacking any of the several existing threads discussing "acorns," I hope to introduce some folks to what I believe are outstanding hybrid white oak habitat trees. The first 3 species are Crimson Spire, Regal Prince, and Kindred Spirit. All 3 have columnar English Oak as one parent. After a road trip tomorrow to pick up acorns, I'll begin with Crimson Spire.

Crimson Spire is a hybrid white oak involving a columnar English oak and a white oak that is one of the fastest-growing white oak hybrids that can reach heights of 50' and a radius of 12-18 feet. It produces large numbers of nice size acorns on a very regular basis and often retains its leaves throughout the winter (great for screens). All of the acorn-producing attributes of the columnar English oak parent make this species a great habitat tree. It is advertised to be good including zone 4 and it often begins to fruit in 7-8 years with proper care (early watering, fertilization, competition elimination and protection) and its limb structure usually begins between 1-3 feet above the ground and, over time, has a canopy capable of throwing large quantities of mast. It also can serve as a screen (interior of property / probably not on roadsides) to shield a food plot or provide property-entry cover with early season mast. Attached are photos including a picture of some of the Crimson Spire (hand picked and float-tested) acorns I just received from my main source. The 2nd photo is a March 1, 2023 photo of one of his source trees that retained its leaves well into winter. I bought 350 acorns so I may have a few extra available.

 

[Rubee]

To avoid high-jacking any of the several existing threads discussing "acorns," I hope to introduce some folks to what I believe are outstanding hybrid white oak habitat trees. The first 3 species are Crimson Spire, Regal Prince, and Kindred Spirit. All 3 have columnar English Oak as one parent. After a road trip tomorrow to pick up acorns, I'll begin with Crimson Spire.

Crimson Spire is a hybrid white oak involving a columnar English oak and a white oak that is one of the fastest-growing white oak hybrids that can reach heights of 50' and a radius of 12-18 feet. It produces large numbers of nice size acorns on a very regular basis and often retains its leaves throughout the winter (great for screens). All of the acorn-producing attributes of the columnar English oak parent make this species a great habitat tree. It is advertised to be good including zone 4 and it often begins to fruit in 7-8 years with proper care (early watering, fertilization, competition elimination and protection) and its limb structure usually begins between 1-3 feet above the ground and, over time, has a canopy capable of throwing large quantities of mast. It also can serve as a screen (interior of property / probably not on roadsides) to shield a food plot or provide property-entry cover with early season mast. Attached are photos including a picture of some of the Crimson Spire (hand picked and float-tested) acorns I just received from my main source. The 2nd photo is a March 1, 2023 photo of one of his source trees that retained its leaves well into winter. I bought 350 acorns so I may have a few extra available.

Thanks OakSeeds for this info. Looking forward for your details on the regal prince and kindred spirit.
Rubee

 

[OakSeeds]

There are 2 columnar white oak hybrid trees that each represent swamp white oak X columnar English oak hybrids. The main difference is the width / radius of the tree. The Regal Prince cultivar usually has a width of 15+ feet while the Kindred Spirit version is often 5-7 feet. Both are swo X col. Eng oaks species and, with col. Eng oak as one parent, enjoy most of the beneficial attributes of the Crimson Spire (frequent fruiting, large numbers of good size acorns, hybrid growth rate, acorns in 10 years or less, dense branching structure and safe in zones 4-9. Since the Regal Prince usually does NOT retain as many leaves deep into winter, is probably not as effective for screening as the crimson Spire cultivar (wo X col. Eng oak). Nevertheless, as a Regal Prince tree ages, its strong and very dense branching still makes it a viable tree for light screening.

I believe the RP makes a better specimen/street tree AND a better habitat tree than the Kindred Spirit except in urban settings where the is little room for horizontal expansion of the tree. Its big benefit (as I see it) for RP as street trees is the magnificant beauty of their dark green glossy leaves (from the swo parent). Their advantage as habitat trees is simple ... size (of the canopy) matters ... even though, in this case, the canopy is vertical. Simply said, ceteris paribus, they can produce a substantially heavier mast load in any given year. And they are great to admire while sitting on your stand or in your shooter house. RPs are great for generating food and shelter/bedding in small "pockets" in a more dense woods. For example, a pocket 40' X 30-40 feet would accommodate 3 columnar oaks planted in a V configuration (20' apart).

Someone ask if it is difficult to tell these 3 columnar white oaks apart. Not really ... the Crimson spire show an affinity for the white oak parent (alba) and produce leaves similar to the white oak. The Crimson Spire acorn is shaped much like the white oak (elongated - 1 to 1.5") however most white oak acorns often are slightly tapered at the end. The Regal Prince tree exhibits affinity toward the swamp white oak parent with big green glossy leaves that look very much like swo tree leaves and the RP acorn is very similar to that of the swo (perhaps not quite as chunky). The Kindred Spirit is often known as the skinny tree and the "skinny" shape (especially after 10-12 years) is likely the best way to distinguish it from the Regal Prince.

 

[OakSeeds]

Wow! what a great Saturday I experienced! Road trip to check some seed-source trees and enjoyed 2 great finds. 1st - An English oak (robur) that I checked last year (it was still loaded in late Sept. in 2023) had gobs of acorns (2024) and appeared to have 70-80% on the tree on Sat. Sept 21. I believe the tree is only about 10-12 old or less. Most of the other English oaks I get acorns from have typically droped 80-90% percent of their acorns by mid-Sept... so, I'm gonna watch this tree as a potential "later" dropper. I took 1 half-gallon jug of acorns off the tree and left the remainder to measure (crudely) the retention rate (anything left by Oct. 20 or later. I don't know that anyone will ever find a white oak holding lots of acorns well into Nov. since I believe the white oak species is genetically programmed to drop well before hard freezes which can turn them to mush and extinguish their natural viability as seed.
Attached are photos of the half-gallon group of acorns we removed from the lower reaches of the tree ... only 21 acorns in the half gallon batch of robur acorns were brown (see photo).
2nd find story to come later.

 

[bwoods11]

They look great!

 

[OakSeeds]

The second "find" on Saturday was fruiting on a tree I checked last year when it had a single acorn. It had quite a few acorns on it when we checked it on Saturday; however, the big "find" was the absence of any acorns or evidence (parts of caps, squirrel leavings like shell, etc) that acorns had ripened sufficiently to drop on the ground. It appeared every acorn the tree produced was still attached to the tree ... with many in 2-3 acorn clusters. They were all green; nevertheless, we picked a half gallon container of acorns and left the remainder on the tree to see / ascertain information about the "drop" schedule over the next 30-45 days ... should the tree retain any acorns that long ... essentially the same strategy to crudely measure the retention rate discussed above with regard to an English oak tree. As the attached photos reveal, every acorn we photographed on the tree or harvested was green as a gourd. Can't help but be a little excited about this one.

 

[Angus 1895]

All my crimson spires froze when my garage lost heat.

I do have some other columnar hybrids that made it.

 

[OakSeeds]

I picked some chestnut burs off one of my trees and picked up a couple of unopened burs off the ground under the tree today. Thought some folks might be interested in the differences in the various "bur-stages" associated with the chestnuts becoming ripe. Some burs (the majority of dunstans and colossal chestnuts) we have are ripe enough to pick by Sept 15. During the last half of Sept and the first half of Oct, many of the burs will become ripe enough (begin to dry) on the tree for the bur to open; now, wind induced movement of the tree branch usually results in the chestnuts falling to the ground to become easy pickings for deer, squirrels and other critters. Some burs - although ripe - fall to the ground unopened and after a short period of time become dry enough to split open - exposing the chestnuts to chestnut eating animals. Finally, some green burs exit the tree and remain closed for a week to 10 days before opening.
Attached are photos showing a box of green burs I picked off the tree, completely ripe chestnuts I gathered from open burs on the ground and ripe-but-still-green chestnuts I removed from green, unopened burs that had fallen from the tree. ALL of the chestnuts gathered - including those still in burs I picked off the tree are viable as seed for growing chestnuts. The point is .... to minimize shrinkage/loss to deer and other varmints, pick your chestnuts after Sept. 15. I included 3 Chinese chestnuts to show size comparison .. we have a few Chinese chestnuts that are probably 40-50% bigger ... didn't have any Chinese close by when photos were taken.

 

[OakSeeds]

Just about 24 hrs later; they are starting to get darker .... 3rd photo - 3 hours later