How to plant Burr Acorn

[dlwalters]

My husband brought home some burr acorn. Is there a way of planting them to get them to grow. My brother said he thought it had to be very close to water. That is the only place he has seen them grow. Can anyone please give me some info about them. Thank you.

[beenthere]

Welcome to the forum.
 
Assume you are referring to the Burr oak acorn?

You don't say where you are located.
Burr oak does well on dry sites, and not sure what your reference was about being near water.

[SwampDonkey]

Well, you could pot them in an inch of soil over them and wait a couple weeks. Or stick'm in the ground in spots where you can tend them from weeds and such. Poke a hole in the soil about 1" deep, drop the seed in, scuff the ground and wait. They don't require cold stratification like red oak to break dormancy. Up here in my climate, they probably mostly over winter before they germinate because of frost. I go to a couple of trees on a woodlot that are well away from water along a woodlot road. I only found one this year that the squirrels did not get to. I am going to pot it soon. 

[woodtroll]

Swamp donkey is right.
As far as water, burr oaks can be found in swamps as well as the dry plains. The acorns are different. Acorns from a bottom land grown burr can be bigger then a ping pong ball.
It seems many of "wet" species of oak do very well under the stress of dry growing conditions in landscaping.

[Dodgy Loner]

It seems many of "wet" species of oak do very well under the stress of dry growing conditions in landscaping.

This is an interesting phenomenon that has been noted by many horticulturalists.  Wet site species tend to tolerate the stress of compacted soils much better than typical upland species.  Perhaps the primary stressor for trees found in wet areas is the lack of oxygen when the roots are inundated.  Thus, these trees which handle the low-oxygen environments found in lowlands are also able to handle the low-oxygen environments of compacted soils .  Overcup oak, bur oak, Nuttall oak, swamp chestnut oak, baldcypress, river birch and many other bottomland species can be found out-performing their upland counterparts on the heavily compacted clay soils of the UGA campus.

[SwampDonkey]

However , red maple, if considered as a lowland species will not tolerate drought as well on the maple ridges up here. They have a lot of crown die back. Also, compaction from harvesting in the wetter areas, not necessarily sloppy muck ground but ground that stays firm and moist, will cause crown die back. Sites with fluctuating water table will be similar. I don't have any definitive paper on this, but just observations. I think over harvesting a stand by removing too much basal area has a big influence, since most loggers tend to follow that philosophy in these parts, often leaving a lot of cull trees.  Lots of factors at play, so take that with a grain of salt.

[dlwalters]

Thank you for all the info you have given me... by the way SORRY... I live in  Southwestern Missouri. The only place we have found them is near the rivers. I haven't seen them anywhere else. ( thats not saying much since this is the first time I have seen them and I have lived here my whole life)

[WDH]

I believe that burr oak sprouts in the fall to put down a taproot, then starts vegetative growth in the spring.  So, plant them now!