White Oak vs Swamp Chestnut

TreesuitSC

5 year old buck +
I love both trees and am blessed to have both on my place.

The Swamp Chestnut is probably my favorite.

Question?? I know the White Oak can be hit or miss with acorn production. Maybe a good year then a few off years. It seems that the Swamp Chestnut is more consistent from year to year.

What have you seen?

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Unfortunately, neither one here

You are blessed,indeed

bill
 
The only SC I have is the one I planted 18 years ago. No production off it yet. They're not from around here. There are whites around, though. There are a lot of variation within them. Two trees I know of produce every year. One being about 5 feet in diameter. Some I know of have only produced a couple times in the 30+ years I've watched them. Most have a good crop every few years with light to nothing in-between.
 
A local park has five mature, large swamp chestnut oaks. I have been watching, collecting acorns, and keeping notes on these trees since 2017. As you are probably aware, not all oaks are good acorn producers, so I have confined my acorn collecting to one tree that produces more acorns than the four other trees combined. I am still not sure if it is a good acorn producer though since the sample size to compare it to is limited. This one tree dropped thousands of acorns in 2017, the first year I started collecting and growing trees. It didn't drop as many in 2018. 2019 was the worst year I have witnessed so far and it only produced maybe a 5-gallon bucket full of acorns. 2020 was similar to 2018. 2021 was another bumper crop where it was raining acorns. This swamp chestnut oak has produced every year, but it produced very few acorns in 2019. The other swamp chestnut oaks in the park had similar cycles, but produced far fewer acorns. One tree only produced a few acorns in 2017 and none since.
 
Thank you. That is very interesting for sure.

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Swamp white oaks seem more reliable on my place over quercus alba.

Swamp Chestnut is not native to my range to compare.


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The AL State Champion Swamp Chestnut oak grew on my family's farm when I was a kid but I didn't even realize its significance or appreciate the acorns for what they were.
I don't see SCO up here in this part of KY... I have a SCO seedling in the yard from acorns that a friend from MS sent, but too young yet to bear.
For that matter, I don't see SWO 'in the wild' here, either.
 
I only have white oaks. The deer love them but others have said they're very spotty year to year and when there is a good crop, they drop in September before our season starts. Last year was a great mast year for me, between the beech and the white oaks and it was almost all gone prior to archery season starting. We have a lot of chestnut oak (not swamp) around here. They typically produce large crops yearly but the deer don't like them near as much. They'll lay on the ground until winter a lot of years.
 
Great discussion, thanks everyone.

Love hearing about all the great trees and how its different from place to place.

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The most consistent producer with the longest drop times I've seen have been my English oaks. I have about 3 dozen at my house and the two best dropped over October and November this year. They have decent crops every year with heavy crops every few years.
 
The most consistent producer with the longest drop times I've seen have been my English oaks. I have about 3 dozen at my house and the two best dropped over October and November this year. They have decent crops every year with heavy crops every few years.
I planted 50 English oaks and 50 SCO last spring this spring I’m adding about 300 RO of different types for a about a 1-3 Ratio white oak to red Oak. White oaks may be preferred acorns but their production is much more spotty with the exception of perhaps English oak red oaks are more of your year-to-year nutritional workhorse for the deer herd from my reading.
 
As much as I like messing around with the white oak hybrids, if I could only have one type, it would be a northern red. With the possible exception of a shumard / NR hybrid I have, but it's too soon to tell how they will turn out.
 
The church down the street from my house has 5 or 6 huge red oaks and they are typically loaded every year with acorns. Last year, in a year when there seemed to be a large mast crop, they barely produced anything. First year in the 14 years I've lived there that I can recall. I always walk the dog along there and usually cringe when I think what it must be like to mow it with so many acorns on the ground. They're sandwiched between the church parking lot and a highway. It's got to be like a constant acorn shotgun coming out from under the mower.
 
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