Do any of you have lots of Fagus grandifolia, which is known as American Beech in your area? They aren't common in the parts of Ohio I frequent. I used to hunt a public hunting area West of Dayton, Ohio called Sycamore. It had a few huge beech trees in one section of it. I never failed to get an Ohio limit of 6 squirrels there. I once shot 5 out of just 1 beech tree and another in the one next to it, in under 5 minutes, without moving and there were still more squirrels in sight. I've never squirrels chase each other around and fight as much as they did in those trees. I don't think it ever took me more than an hour to limit out there.

For those of you that have beeches, are they squirrel magnets in your area too?

How long does it take a beech to produce nuts?

Do they produce every year, or are they cyclical?

What's the soil like where you find them? These seemed to be in clay with a tiny bit of topsoil over it. I never saw any sapling beeches.

If I can find some seeds, I would like to get some established in my woods. I thought the trees were beautiful. Some were well over 4' in diameter.

Keith

… again … no profanity

I just won a bet with myself that you would respond first cousin Savell LOL.

Keith

… getting predictable I guess…. Not much to do around here this time of night lol

They're quite thin in my area. I see more of them the further north I go. They seem to thrive in areas with greater changes of elevation than my mostly flat to rolling piedmont. I suspect it might be soil and soil moisture related as they are a bottomland species in most areas that I'm familiar with them. Not swamp bottom as I've never seen them in wet bottoms but on high bank levees and up in the holler bottoms and up the sides of ridges.

I say that as we have quite a bit of them on our south Alabama homeplace, far further south than here. It has around fifty foot elevation changes. Where I grew up west of Birmingham we had tons of them as well and hundred foot changes.

Forever to produce as beech are a weird one that'll live for decades as a small understory tree waiting for an opening to develop in the canopy. Open grown would probably grow quicker but I can't recall ever seeing one out in the open. I would assume they're not a pioneer species due to that. Nut production is also cyclical like their cousins the oaks.

We have a lot of sick Beech here. They dont produce nuts anymore and if you do find some they are only empty shells. used to be lots of them, great deer food, woods were crawling with chipmunks , not any more .

We have alot in certain areas i frequent. As far as i am concerned, this is one of the best mast trees for wildlife.
Deer, bear, turkeys, squirrels feed heavily when available. Seem to be go in cycles as far as yearly production.
There is a disease spreading amongst them, forgot what its called.
Excellent as firewood also!

we used to have lots of beech trees in the eastern have of the u p , beech bark rot killed a lot of them, still have some in the central u p , I'm not sure if they produce nut every year, was trapping skunks last week for a friend he had a big one in his yard , pods everywhere on the ground, beech produce a lot of off shoots , little trees every where

they grow in any soil here from sandy to clay and rock

Beech are abundant around my camp in north central PA near the NY state line. They are very shade tolerant and will grow in almost any soil.

I transplanted a bunch from the woods to alongside the lane leading to my camp, spaced them every twenty-five feet along both sides.

That’s when I found out that they were one of the porcupines’ favorite foods. The first two years they girdled and killed a bunch of them and I had to re-transplant them.

I bought rolls of aluminum coil stock and made my own tubes to put around them. That solved the porcupine issue.

I hear a lot about various diseases that affect them, but so far, mine remain healthy and growing.

I don’t know how old they have to be to start producing nuts. I do know that they are one of the last trees to lose their leaves in the fall/winter. Sometimes the dead leaves stay on the tree until new growth begins in the spring.

Had Beeches on my place upstate NY, mostly on the rocky ridges, about 2,000 ', Don't know how they're fairing as I sold the place a few years ago. but....nut production was sporadic, and was cleaned up almost as soon as they dropped. By deer gun season in November there was none left.

I have seen very few here in MS although there are some. They were very common in the woods my grandfather owned in western NY when I was young. There were even more ash trees in his woods, which are all dead now. The last time I saw his land I was devastated... it looked nothing like the woods I remembered from youth. But... the beeches were still there. I was only there a day and I didn't notice if they were sick, like Mole's are.

Theres beech trees in the woods behind me and I drive by Sycamore everyday. I don't know how beech seeds work but tell me and we'll both grow some out of those exact trees if you wanna hmu.

Plenty of American beech trees in northern NY , but most have the beech scale disease and now beech leaf wilt. But beech sprout from the roots as well as from the beechnuts they sporadically produce. If you cut beech trees you increase the sprouting from the roots, the Adirondacks and Tug Hill Plateau Have areas where beech sprouts/ beech brush choke everything else out. Deer eat the beechnuts but do not browse on beech brush.

I don't see a lot of them here, mainly because it's just not one of my trees of interest.

NW part of the state and surrounding areas has been having disease issues killing a lot of them off.

I've got plenty of them in my woods. Some are hollow and some aren't. A timber buyer wants the ones that aren't hollow. The best one I had was so big that two of us couldn't reach around it and join hands. I guess it was 2 to 300 years old. It was hollow and it slowly died over a few years time. The wind blew it over a few years back and it is slowly decaying down to nothing.

Thanks. The easiest way to grow a beech tree from seed is to soak the seeds for about 24 hours and select the seeds that sink. The seeds that float are likely infertile. Plant the seeds about 1/2" deep, where you can protect them from rodents, in light soil and they should come up well in the Spring.

You can also cold stratify the beech seeds in your refrigerator. Just do the 24 hours soak and place the seeds that sink in slightly damp peat moss or vermiculite in your refrigerator for 3 months. They may start sprouting in the fridge. After 3 months, place the seeds half an inch deep, in light soil, in pots. Plant any seeds, that have sprouted already, root side down. It doesn't matter what orientation you plant the other ones. They should soon germinate, if it's warm enough.

Keith

Takes about 40 years to start producing , best production after 50 years.

I have beech in my woods but no nuts over the last 5 years. Beech is my favorite tree; fisher, bear, turkey, squirrels and deer love the nuts, and beech makes excellent firewood. Sad news on their continued decline.

When beech has an on year they tend to crop heavy and are prime forage for everything that eats beechnuts. Killed a ton of squirrels when beech was on but it might be years in between good years.