Acorns on oak trees

looksee

Any information I have read suggests that oak trees do not produce acorns until they are 70 to 80 years old. I have what I think is a Sessile oak in the garden which is no more than 20 years old and has quite a good crop of acorns. They are quite small but definitely acorns. Is this particularly unusual?

magicbastarder

i've seen oaks which are not much more than ten years old producing acorns.

looksee

I wonder where this 80 years thing has come from, I remember years back being told that was the youngest that oaks produce acorns, but it is evidently not the case.

looksee

Ok, I actually did a bit more research and most articles seem to say 'people say 20/50/70 years but...' and it turns out they can have acorns as young as 5 years, though it does depend a bit on how much light the tree is getting - a forest tree is likely to be older - and crops from younger trees are likely to be less abundant.

Those strains brought into cultivation would be likely to be more precocious, I suppose. I think it is reasonably well established that the prime acorn producing age for the two native oaks is between 40 and 120 years old. You often seen magnificent woodland trees, completely barren, year on year, obviously past their fertile prime; I don't know whether acorn producing simply stops, or just tails off.

RandomViewer

There's a few oak trees out the back, not that big but they produce acorns,