Successfully Germinating Bur oak and Red oak.

[Banjo picker]

I planted the white oak this week, but to the front yard instead of the back.  I have been checking on the butternut that i got form DL but nothing yet.  I think somebody on here said they might take 2 years.?   I am a little impatient I guess.  Thats why I like White Oak, they sprout almost before they hit the ground.   Tim

[SwampDonkey]

Banjo picker, maybe 2 years, but a lot will come this year to. Mine never come up through the ground until July the following year from the previous fall harvest. So, seems they take longer than 2 weeks when conditions are right.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, here is the 2009 crop of bur oak off a couple of remote trees I have been keeping an eye on. These are what I could reach.



I beat the squirrels this time.

[SwampDonkey]

I was doing a little more reading on bur oak from the USDA site. It says our northern race of burr oak may be recognized as another variety since it's acorns are smaller and germination is best when stratified. It also seems bur oak will hybridize with other white oak species. I'd be interested in a planting a couple in the yard to compliment my well established white oak from NH. To get some seed from that cross would be awesome. My white oak is quite slow growing, but very hardy, and it says bur oak is very slow growing as well. My soil is also calcareous, which is preferred by bur oak but is also damp like bottom land in Ohio (American elm, red maple, black ash cover type), but not flooded. They can't take flooding. The presence of northern white cedar is also a good indication of calcareous soil, but our soils maps show this region of NB to be calcareous and about the best place in NB to grow trees.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, yesterday I sunk those bur oak seed I collected last fall into some new potting soil.

Wish me success this round.

[Brian Beauchamp]

Good luck! By the way, they can take 'flooding', just not prolonged periods of inundation such as in a swamp setting. They are pretty prevalent in our flood plains along the rivers here. Also, have you noticed any swamp white oak up your direction?

[SwampDonkey]

Brian, I guess I don't know who your asking. But, if me, we don't have any other native oak species except bur oak and red oak here. But we are the only Maritime province to have bur oak.

[WDH]

Y'all are "oak challenged" in NB 

[SwampDonkey]

For sure, not only species-wise. But being sparse as they are, it's a challenge to perpetuate them. 

[Brian Beauchamp]

Yep...asking you Swamp!

Strange how swamp white is everywhere around you...even skipped over into Nova Scotia somehow according to the USDA distribution map:
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=qubi

I was hoping you could change the distribution map! 

Brian, I guess I don't know who your asking. But, if me, we don't have any other native oak species except bur oak and red oak here. But we are the only Maritime province to have bur oak.

[SwampDonkey]

There's no swamp white oak in Nova Scotia neither. We have more species here in New Brunswick than Nova Scotia does.  The furthest east in Canada for that species is on the Ontario-Quebec border at the mouth of the Ottawa River and islands. Nova Scotia doesn't have butternut nor basswood either and we do. The Saint John River valley is a haven for species that don't exist in other areas of the region and diminishing because of farmland clearing. Just about all the best ground is growing taters.

Natural history of the Saint John River Valley