Lack of acorns on native Irish Oaks

JR79

I am looking to grow some oak trees from acorns, had some good success with some I planted last year & want to grow some more.
The only thing is I can’t see any acorns this year. Has anyone noticed this lack of acorns on our native Irish oaks, or maybe its just the trees I've looked at.


Thanks

maddragon

I have a good few acorns on mine. Happy to give them to you if you can collect.

bbam

JR79 wrote: »

I am looking to grow some oak trees from acorns, had some good success with some I planted last year & want to grow some more.
The only thing is I can’t see any acorns this year. Has anyone noticed this lack of acorns on our native Irish oaks, or maybe its just the trees I've looked at.


Thanks

It seems to be avery localised..
the trees round me have very little fruit..

Haws/Slows/Damsons/Plums/Apples/Chestnuts are all virtually non existant..
Pockets of late frosts last sring seem to have caused problems in some areas.. We're at 260meters high and quite exposed..

JR79

Thanks for that Maddragon but I am afraid I am based in Dublin & the west of Ireland.

magicbastarder

your best bet is to always use locally sourced acorns; they're more likely to do well in the conditions the parent tree did well in; acorns from an oak in dublin might not do well planted in a windy spot in the west.

Oldtree

If you are a fan of the local provenance idea then tree seed should be sourced from within a 20 mile radius of the planting area.

Not to disagree with you magicbastarder as I agree with you, but the exception proves the rule..
I was given a seedling of an evergreen oak with the acorn collected in the national botanic gardens up there, which I cosseted for a year or two in a pot and it is flourishing here in an exposed site in Mayo albeit adjacent to a beech hedge.

Northumbria

Look for a stream in a ravine or a narrow valley where the trees are protected from the wind. Typically you'll find some ancient woodland and lots of local oaks with acorns on.
It's been a bad year for fruit and seeds altogether. Not nearly as many berries on Rowan, not as many Damsons or Apples either. I wanted to take some conkers and grow a few Horse Chestnuts myself but there's only a handful and they're still on the trees.

It's not too bad yet though. Consider poor small-leaved lime trees - they haven't produced viable seed in England (where they're native) for a few centuries now - it's too cool in summer. They were common during warmer periods in history but probably ceased to be common as the climate began cooling after the Medieval warm period. The trees what are left sometimes produce clones from suckers or fallen branches that have taken root, some may set seed if we have a very good summer one year.

Oldtree

apples did not do well here this year, but rowan seems to have loads of berries and the chestnets lots of conkers

magicbastarder

i was recently reading that the annual demad for acorns in ireland runs to 35 tons, but that only 8 tons are collected here. the rest are sourced abroad.

Oldtree

magicbastarder wrote: »

i was recently reading that the annual demad for acorns in ireland runs to 35 tons, but that only 8 tons are collected here. the rest are sourced abroad.

can you link that pl, thats very worrying.

these collect native acorns
http://www.nonesohardy.ie/nsh-developments/native-woodland-scheme.php

Northumbria

magicbastarder wrote: »

i was recently reading that the annual demad for acorns in ireland runs to 35 tons, but that only 8 tons are collected here. the rest are sourced abroad.

Why? What do people do with them? Eat them or grow trees?

magicbastarder

Oldtree wrote: »

can you link that pl, thats very worrying.

found the link:

http://www.coilltenurseries.ie/notes/oak-harvesting.pdf

healthfood

Hey there,

Just wondering if you managed to find any acorns? I've been looking for some for ages with no luck!

magicbastarder

went looking for some today, and i found one, in about half an hour of searching.

healthfood

Eek!

JR79

healthfood wrote: »

Hey there,

Just wondering if you managed to find any acorns? I've been looking for some for ages with no luck!

Hi

In the end I found 5 so not much luck really!

tampopo

about a month ago, there were hundreds and hundreds that had fallen on Conynham road in Dublin 8 along by the Park. A couple of days later they had been road-swept up. Try there again....

paddy147

Theres also a fungus disease that is spreading accross Europe and has now hit Ireland.

It is killing off various trees and especially ash trees.

The leaves fall off and the tree dies from the top down.

There is a lack of ash now in this country for the hurley makers to make hurleys.

Article about the disease and how if affects trees in todays Sun,Herald and Irish Daily Mail.

Oldtree

Thread about ash dieback here on forestry:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056779392

so far ash dieback does not affect any other species, but there are other different pathogens working their way through various tree species.

About the acorns, My evergreen oak had lots of immature acorns on it but unfortunatly none matured and there are no visible signs of disease on the plant.

Similarly the apple harvest is down to 30% of normal, put down to the opoor spring so it may be the same for the acorns.

paddy147

The disease is spreading like wildfire through the UK at the moment.

Its spreads by the wind and the RFS/RHS and UK Goverment are clueless as to how to stop it spreading.

Its wiping out all the Ash trees over there now.

Its so serious that it made the main headlines on Sky News today.


http://news.sky.com/story/1008127/ash-dieback-threat-may-be-worse-than-feared


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20226831

magicbastarder

i reckon there's nothing for it but let it run its course.

wildlifeboy

I wish it would come to my garden and kill my ash tree's. i hate them. is there anyone who would cut it down for free to use the wood? i presume there probably is.

magicbastarder

what's so hateful about ash trees?

wildlifeboy

ah they are fine in the right place. its just that they are growing exactly down the border line with my neighbour and i dont want to pay 400 quid to remove them and build a wall or a fence.

paddy147

wildlifeboy wrote: »

ah they are fine in the right place. its just that they are growing exactly down the border line with my neighbour and i dont want to pay 400 quid to remove them and build a wall or a fence.

Are they big/mature trees??

wildlifeboy

there are 3 of them that are pretty young. id say less than ten which shouldnt be too hard to get out. the one on the end could be about 30 or so and the trunk is very thick. that one will need a lot of work.

Oldtree

ensure you are within the law to fell trees and that you have the (written) agreement of your neighbour if the trees straddle the boundry. Unless you dig them out or are happy for them to regrow, you may want to poison the root to ensure they dont regrow.

http://www.agriculture.gov.ie/forestservice/treefelling/legalrequirementsfortreefelling/

wildlifeboy

I am alright

b) The tree in question is less than 100 feet from a dwelling other than a wall or temporary structure;

i could handle most of it myself with a decent saw. any tips on how to poisen it good so it dies as quick as possible?

Northumbria

wildlifeboy wrote: »

ah they are fine in the right place. its just that they are growing exactly down the border line with my neighbour and i dont want to pay 400 quid to remove them and build a wall or a fence.

Cut them down yourself? A saw doesn't cost very much. Trees don't just vanish once they're dead, they still stand for years and eventually drop branches rather dangerously so you'd have to cut them down anyway.

magicbastarder

Northumbria wrote: »

A saw doesn't cost very much.

certainly not. but a tree falling on your house does.

Northumbria

magicbastarder wrote: »

certainly not. but a tree falling on your house does.

Get up a ladder and drop off a few branches at a time, then cut a wedge in the trunk. Then either cut through or attach a long rope and pull it down.



Alternatively if you're just waiting for ash dieback to reach it you could just drill a few holes and pour bleach in.

wildlifeboy

thanks very much. very helpful. i am going to take him out this weekend. and then i'll load up the stump with bleach. i actually dont mind having a bit of a stump there.

Oldtree

Be very careful, a ladder can be a death trap to the unweary as can an novice felling a tree. As my grandmother used to say to me "stupid is as stupid does"

Bleach is not a sound environmentally or effective method of poisioning a tree or tree stump.

read my and other posters posts here if you do not intend to dig the stump out starting at: 18-09-2012, 13:18

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin//showthread.php?t=2056188147

Northumbria

wildlifeboy wrote: »

thanks very much. very helpful. i am going to take him out this weekend. and then i'll load up the stump with bleach. i actually dont mind having a bit of a stump there.

It's probably better to dig the stump out, I'd only bleach it if it's too much to remove really. A lot of European trees will regrow from the stump, ash is one of them. It's the whole idea behind the practice of coppicing.

Oldtree wrote: »

Be very careful, a ladder can be a death trap to the unweary as can an novice felling a tree. As my grandmother used to say to me "stupid is as stupid does"

Bleach is not a sound environmentally or effective method of poisioning a tree or tree stump.

read my and other posters posts here if you do not intend to dig the stump out starting at: 18-09-2012, 13:18

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin//showthread.php?t=2056188147

Well it depends on quantity really. There are a lot of negative natural chemicals all around us and run-off from urban areas such as car wash, lead off roofs and weedkillers, etc... In small quantities the effects are rather negligible. It's not good for the environment though, but then again nothing humans do really is.

Personally I'd dig up the stump or take as much off as possible, enough so that nothing above ground would remain.

Oldtree

Northumbria wrote: »

It's probably better to dig the stump out, I'd only bleach it if it's too much to remove really. A lot of European trees will regrow from the stump, ash is one of them. It's the whole idea behind the practice of coppicing.

Well it depends on quantity really. There are a lot of negative natural chemicals all around us and run-off from urban areas such as car wash, lead off roofs and weedkillers, etc... In small quantities the effects are rather negligible. It's not good for the environment though, but then again nothing humans do really is.

Personally I'd dig up the stump or take as much off as possible, enough so that nothing above ground would remain.

yes digging the stump up would be the best avenue if you dont want it to regrow, second best is to poison the stump with a more benign chemical that turns into a nitrogenous fertiliser within 30 days. Bleach is not on the list and would only be used by cheapskates that have no respect for the environment let alone their own gardens.

Why seek to add more inappropiate chemicals into the environment around us, it may appear a small amount of damage on an individual basis but not so small if everybody does it. My own preference is to do as little damage as possible to the environment and respect it.