Oaks produce acorns each year in the fall, but the size of the crop varies greatly depending on a number of factors. If you have oak trees in your area, you know that their annual acorn crop can be highly unpredictable. “Oaks can start producing acorns at 20 years of age, but sometimes they can reach 50 years of age for the first harvest.
Oak trees produce acorns during August, September, and October. They do so most prolifically after reaching ages between 50 and 100 years. Acorns are produced in batches that occur roughly every four years. An oak tree may begin producing acorns when it is as young as 20 years old.
An oak will not start producing acorns until it is about 50 years old, and in its lifetime it will produce about ten million acorns. Some oak species may produce their first crop after about 20 years of their life, and then produce no acorns at all for the next two or three seasons.
It may take only a few weeks to see sprouts sprout from the ground from acorns, but it can take up to 30 years before an oak matures and begins to produce its own acorns. However, it may take another 20 to 30 years before most trees in the white oak family start producing acorns.
Normal Acorn Expectations for Oak Trees
Generally, when a tree from a white oak species is producing well, all potential acorn producing trees in that white oak population will also tend to produce well. Some species of oak are naturally better at producing acorns than others, and these different species tend to produce good crops of acorns in different years.
Acorn production can vary by species and individual trees in the oak family, but tree cultivation is one way this important group of trees can continue to be a part of our Midwest landscape. If an oak tree wants to increase the chances of its seeds surviving, overproduction is a smart strategy so that there are more acorns than squirrels can eat.
The bumper crop of acorns is costing An Oak dearly, as the company makes conspicuous forays into sugar and starch stocks. Oak trees in the area and climate can be considered an incredible crop, meaning that they produce a particularly large number of acorns.
A 1993 study by the U.S. Forest Service found that oak trees in the central Appalachian Mountains produce an abundant crop of acorns only once a decade. Studies have shown that among white oaks, only about 30 percent of large, healthy trees will produce acorns, even in harvest years. As oak branches buckled under the weight of the 2013 acorn harvest, the following year the Forestry Commission reported that there were few.
Ideal Growing Conditions for Acorns
This spring has been dry and hot, and the summer has been dry and wet – ideal conditions for an oak to grow a crop of oak acorns. Each autumn, the trees in the red oak group will have a combination of small immature acorns in the current year’s growth and mature acorns in past years’ growth.
Red oaks lose their ripe acorns only every autumn; the immature ones will last through the winter and into the next growing season unless driven off by storms or animals. White oaks can usually germinate the same season that acorns have fallen, while red oak acorns will not germinate until the following spring due to their need for a dormant period that occurs in winter. Typically, trees stop shedding acorns when all the ripe nuts have fallen off, which usually occurs in late fall or early winter.
Harvest acorns from low branches or from the ground in September, when they begin to change color from green to reddish brown and some of them begin to fall off. If you leave acorns in the trees or don’t disturb them when they fall, you are more likely to attract wildlife.
If you don’t like to cook and aren’t interested in cooking acorns, consider leaving them in the trees and on the ground for the wild animals around you to appreciate. Wildlife populations that depend on acorns may eat most of the seeds during normal seed collection, but may not be able to use all of the seeds produced during tree time.
Temperature and Moisture Fluctuations Produce Acorn Yield Variation
Fluctuations in temperature and day length affect the number of acorns produced by one tree, as do other variables. Annual rainfall and temperature fluctuations are much less than the size of the acorn crop. Pollination between the male and female flowers of a tree plays a role in how long it takes for an acorn fruit to start flowering. Spring cold will freeze the flowers of trees, on the pollination of which the yield of acorns depends.
It is almost impossible to tell whether a particular tree will produce a good harvest in a given year until it begins to bear fruit. Environmental factors can slow the growth of young trees, which can cause them to produce their first crop at a later age than expected. Be aware that many of the good producers in the red oak group can only be overlooked for one year, as individual trees of these species may not all produce a good acorn crop in the same year.
Whatever the reason, our native frugivores have had a bountiful harvest of acorns, and who knows, some seeds may even survive to produce the next generation of the mighty oak, the most characteristic and ancient symbol of our forests. While giving the oak a well-deserved rest, the tree cycle also affects the population of those creatures that feast on acorns. For best results, acorns should be planted in December or January, after the start of the rainy season.
For example, northern red oak acorn production typically peaks when the tree’s diameter at chest height (dbh) (4.5 feet above ground) reaches 20 inches, then gradually decreases as the tree grows.