I know what you intended but when you say a "healthy deer population" but in reality you have a very unhealthy deer population.

When White Oaks can not reach maturity due to deer browse you have too many deer, very unhealthy for the deer and for the rest of nature.


I don't plant Oaks for the deer, I plant them as they are becoming rare and I'd like to think that there will be some left in my woods when they are becoming rarer by the day every where else.

AJE, it'll be interesting to see if your method of planting lots of acorns in hopes of overwhelming the deer so that a few survive will work.
I doubt it will, it takes a good decade but usually more for a Oak to get past the deer. Talked to a DNR forester, he was telling me of a 40 acre plot that was planted in white, bur and red oaks 12 years ago.
It had to be fenced so that the trees would survive.

Dirty D, by healthy I mean we have plenty. Maybe I need to get uncle Jbyrd up here. He’d probably freeze.lol

I live is a closed 72 acre community and we have lots of wildlife. No surprise that they like white oak acorns. A resident flock of Canada geese live in two ponds here. They also prefer white oak acorns and they only dine under a few trees. Not all white oaks taste the same, evidently.

I started gathering acorns today. In 1 hr & 20 minutes I got several hundred bur oak. It was easy picking. This is the same date I started gathering last year. I'll probably start planting anytime between now and January.

I think what I'm doing is worthwhile. I plant so many that even if less than 10% make it long term, I'm probably doing pretty well

are you seeing any small trees ?

Last year I had a good take with the bur oak direct seeding. It seemed to work better than traditional white oak acorns, perhaps because I have poor soil.

Good post, thanks. And I also like that they do good in poorer soils. The long roots seem to help keep them from drying out.

At the moment I'm taking a break from de-capping bur oak acorns. I've done about a thousand this week. My fingers are sore.