hsaintandre's Acorn to Oak Tree Thread

[hsaintandre]

I'm joining the contest a season later. Although I started 5 trees the same year the contest started, I don't have pictures of the process, so I prefer a fresh start.

Last fall I took over a hundred acorns from a big street oak. Typically squirrels eat most of them but for some reason they didn't mess with mines and now I've a hundred seedlings to handle.

They started sending roots late fall so I shyly pruned the tips to avoid a strong tap root and hopefully promote side ones. I think it may not have worked very well cause I saw several pots with long tap-root-like roots underneath. More detail to come when I start messing with them.

So far I've several flats and pots with seedlings, I'll take a single picture of all of them together in a couple of days.

I'll try to find the city tree map to identify the cultivar.

Here are a few ones.
The pair of lungs


Over 50 seedlings, prolly more to come.


These were sown in plant debris.

 

[hsaintandre]

Quick update, they are English oaks according to city's tree cartography.
Apparently there are rubra and cerris in the neighborhood, I'll try to collect acorns of those also.

 

[hsaintandre]

Found some rubra acorns.
From those that had already sent roots, only one was alive, the rest had dried out. Most of the ones that seemed viable floated when soaked. I guess I shouldn't expect a lot of success from this batch.

 

[Shibui]

They started sending roots late fall so I shyly pruned the tips to avoid a strong tap root and hopefully promote side ones. I think it may not have worked very well cause I saw several pots with long tap-root-like roots underneath.

I've cut tap roots of English elm hard, including right close to the acorn. At that stage they can grow new roots to survive and all have survived. The harder I cut back the better the lateral roots. Just taking the tip off the tap root often results in another strong down root.

Good luck with your oaks. I've found it hard to develop good branching with oaks.

 

[hsaintandre]

Oh nice, thanks for the advice. I wouldn't have dared to do such a hard trim.
I've collected saplings in the past but all ended up dying, so I had the impression that they were very sensitive about their roots.

 

[hsaintandre]

A couple of pictures of this year's batch.. germination rate was pretty high.

Promising triple trunk


Oaks.. oaks everywhere

 

[Shibui]

I've collected saplings in the past but all ended up dying, so I had the impression that they were very sensitive about their roots.

I have also found similar but very young seedlings seem to have the ability to grow new roots. I've found that in almost all species I have grown. The younger the seedling the easier it seems to be to grow new roots. I guess that's a sensible survival mechanism.
Some species keep that ability for life, some seem to lose the ability after a year or 2.

 

[hsaintandre]

I separated a batch to try the hard cut back of the roots to see how they react.
Those in a shallow flat without fertile soil underneath couldn't produce a tap root but they sent some coarse ones near the first cut and some nice fine ones as well.


Cut back close to the trunk.


The seedlings in deeper pots regenerated a tap root that escaped and went into the ground. Also no fine roots in the last year's root (dark brown section)