Anyone know more about this?

Red oaks typically require two growing seasons to produce acorns vs members of the white oak family, single season. A bear will walk through 80 acres of red oaks to eat off of a single white oak. My mature burr oaks have claw marks and bear slobber up and down.

Oaks produce acorns when they have the resources and good pollination occurs. Many things impact resources and many things impact pollination. I do agree many wildlife species prefer white oak acorns

A sawtooth oak tree, which is a red oak, produces every year. I have a few other giant red oaks that produce ever year too. I think it's the tree not necessarily the type of oak. Some white oaks I have produce acorns every other year and some every year. Same type of white oak. Red oaks seem to do the same thing. Yea bears love the white oaks and sawtooth oaks. They keep breaking limbs off my sawtooth oaks.

State of Missouri completes mast surveys every year and I have participated several times filling out the form, answering the questions and mailing the info in on a certain area - I assume that info is compiled statewide and then a mast report generated. Ever since I was a young kid I have heard when the national forest has excellent mast years the deer are much more scattered as food is available all over. Does not impact me much up here but I am sure it does more down south

white oak acorns germinate right away, no need for stratification.
Red oaks don't germinate till after a winter.

Red oak acorns are not as palatable till the following spring, thats why white oaks are targeted right away in the fall and red oak acorns are eaten in spring.

white oaks bear a heavy crop about every ten years, its a strategy for insuring some will survive.

Critters find White Oaks sweet tasting, and the Red's are bitter from more tannic acid, and Red's only drop mast every other year.

I am surrounded by large mature oaks. I can assure you the game animals have their favorite white oaks. Canada geese are particularly fond of a few white oaks on the property. White oaks draw more game than red oaks, and some white oaks are especially attractive to geese and animals who feed on their acorns.

Ok the whole two year vs one year talk. Red Oak species require two years from flower development for the pollination process and the acorn to mature. White Oak species only require a single year for flower, pollination and acorn development. That doesn’t mean a red oak can’t produce a crop every year and it doesn’t mean a white oak will. Red oaks can have last year’s flowers developing into acorns which will drop this fall and this year’s flowers developing into acorns which will mature and drop next fall present on the tree at the same time.

so the individual acorns take 2 years to produce. let’s say the flowers pollinated for a group of acorns in spring 2022 won’t produce and drop acorns till the summer/fall of 2023, but the ones pollinated in 2021 will drop in 2022 when the others are being pollinated. i don’t know why this is but i do know that red oaks have giant acorns and that size could contribute to the extended growth.

So not all red oaks have giant acorns. Water oaks have small acorns and willow oaks have tiny acorns, both are red oaks and take two years to develop. Bur Oaks on the other hand have huge acorns and are white oaks and only take one year.

The burr oaks we have here do not produce large acorns they are about the size of the northern red oaks. There are probably multiple kinds of bur oaks.

I have planted over 200 , oak trees on my land some burr, oak already produce acorn,

Good morning, all! Being a newbie, I have never posted here, but decided a word of caution on planting sawtooth oaks might be appropriate. Perhaps everyone is aware of Sawtooth's ability to mature quickly and produce bumper crops of acorns. They seem to be a great choice when doing wildlife plantings. However, many people are apparently not aware that they are a non-native specie with a tendency to become invasive in some areas, crowding out less aggressive native oaks. Sawtooths are of Asian origin(Japan, Korea, China) and are currently included on numerous state invasive specie lists-Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia are all concerned about continued planting.

There is a long list of plants brought to North America from other continents because they might serve someone's purpose here. Good intentions, bad ideas! Often times once they are here and get a foothold in the wild, we have no way to stop their spread. It's a choice we all can make when selecting planting stock. Or.....we can just do what serves us the time and to heck with what effect it has on the woodlands of our grandchildren.

Sorry about the sermon.

CS thanks for the update on the sawtooth oaks and welcome to the T-man tribe.......jk

Thanks for that info.

Yea I didn't know that.

I know that wildlife prefers white oak acorns to red oak but don’t let anyone fool you they will absolutely hammer red oaks in the fall. The areas I hunt have far fewer white oaks vs red oaks and the white oaks are a magnet when they drop but often they’re over and done in the first week or two of October and the red oaks are a huge draw.