Fertilizing Mast Trees

[Kip]

Cliff very true.Not a Forester like yourself but sold quite a bit of timber off of my property.When I tell some of my buddies that cutting a large tree will make more mast than leaving it they think I am crazy.I then explain that four or five small tress will now grow ,and much younger than the old tree will produce much more mast.Logging is not the worst thing for a forest as some believe.Kip

[NoCams]

Heh Joe,
Well I was going to encourage you to pay more attention to the ph of the soil around the white oaks and use all the lime you could carry until I read amber's post above..... ? I am no forester, maybe he is ?

I spent 5 yrs on a lease with a registered forester and learned that our area is very low on the last two numbers on a fertilizer bag, the "C" and the "K" Potassium and calcium maybe ? We usually have enough of the first number, the " N ", nitrogen, especially with all the leaf fall. We are also very low on lime and our soils tend to be very acidic. If you read up on ph levels you will soon see that you can almost never have too much lime on a property. Need to try and get the soil as close to 6.5-7ph level as possible from what I have learned. Remember too..... You can put all the fertilizer you want on a tree but it cannot absorb and use the fertilizer without proper liming and ph levels. I do feel you would get the most bang for your buck with simply liming your trees. This would "sweeten" the mast as well as allow the tree to use what nutrients were in the ground now. Deer seek out white oaks due to the lower tannin levels in the acorns versus red oaks. Lime might equal sugary sweet whote oaks Joe...... ? I simply take a 5' long piece of 3/4" rebar, wallow out 10" deep cone shaped holes around the drip line and pour them full of lime. Amazing what it has done to my pin oaks and hemlock trees I am growing for shade in my yard ! JMHO

nocams

[Liquid Amber]

I once thought it worked; even spent a dozen years messing around with it; even recommended it....but as that old hymn goes..."I seen the light."  

Now, I have a degree and 40 years of experience, including messing around in seed orchards time to time.  About the only thing I've confident of, is that a wild population of mast trees are nothing like a crop and we know very little about the impact [good and bad] that chemicals in fertilizer have on these populations.  

We all can provide "observations," but, "There is no data to support the notion that fertilizing oaks leads to increased acorn production."

Now, I'm pretty good at finding stuff, especially in my field of experience, but there is scant, scientific study on this subject.  One I'm aware of can be accessed at the following site:

 http://fwf.ag.utk.edu/personnel/charper/pdfs/Fertilizing%20oaks%20for%20acorns--Wildlife%20Trends.pdf

[Biggie Hoffman]

Dang it Cliff....

[JC]

Well, I'm smart enough to know when I'm not smart enough. Thanks Cliff, that's the kind of real info I need. Guess I'll lime the pasture Sunday after church instead.    :D

[Roy Steele]

Do it in the spring.Do it the first 2 springs.Then start skipping a spring.Use straight nitrogen on oaks.Do out to the drip line.Never used spikes.Oaks are like apples you have good year bad year.Keep fertized and you'll have good year great year.Bigger sweeter the nuts.I've have places on farms and on public land that I kept going for 25 years.And it does turn the areas into hot spots.And the deer quicky learn where there at.It will also make your tree's hold your nuts longer.So when the rest is gone your are just droping.
   I'd pick 10 to 20 together fertize and you have a food plot no one but you know about.
  Honysuckkles here in WV is the #1 late season food scource.And it does make your patch increase, use 13 10 any will help.L

[NoCams]

Guess I will have to agree with amber and JC. Looks like amber has the edumacation and experience and I don't. Good info amber and nothing like 40 yrs of experience.

I will say this..... The oaks in my yard that I poured the lime to get eaten alive by the japanese beetles, cannot spray enough sevin to hardly keep them at bay. Yet, they ignore the trees 30 yds away that got no lime ??? I once went on vacation during early summer and when I came home one of my 4 yr old oaks was picked almost totally bare by the beetles.

nocams

[gregg dudley]

If Cliff is right it goes to prove you don't have to know what you are talking about to write a magazine article or video.  I have read about fertilizing oaks in numerous hunting periodicals.

[Liquid Amber]

A couple things the forestry community does know; how to maximize seed production.  We been doing it for many years in our seed orchards.  

Back in the early 1970s, the State of Georgia purchased hardwood and pine pine to plant in their nurseries.  Everyone in Coffee county Georgia in the seed collection business knew exactly which trees to go to for seed, and these trees had basically one thing in common, large crowned, open grown trees from yards, pasture, golf courses and other open areas.

Another thing we know, is the we "don't know" how and exactly what factors influence mast or seed production.  Studying wild populations of trees isn't anything like row crops, and only within the past 20 years or so, has there been interest in fertilizing wild trees.    

I've studied pretty good data on the influence of rain in mast production, and the final analysis was that they couldn't determine that rain fall made any difference.  They found high mast production occurred as frequently in wet years as dry years.  There was no connection.

One thing mentioned in the article I linked to, is that not all trees are created equal, some will be good, some moderate and some poor producers of mast.  I would be willing to wager that most bowhunters, after hunting a property for several years, can pick out the good producers.    

Food plots are a different story and cannot be compared in management to wild populations of trees.

Attempting to "make" an outcome by manipulating a variable is generally not very productive, because we don't know what and how/or other variables are affected by our manipulation.

Some of these articles are written by folks that have some "financial" interest.  

[VTer]

I fertilized an oak once........my findings were that it wasn't worth it. Now I just look for the tree that's dropping.  

[JC]

Originally posted by Liquid Amber:
Another thing we know, is the we "don't know" how and exactly what factors influence mast or seed production.  

Actually, that's a very comforting feeling...to know that we don't have very much of anything figured out....and it all still goes on working just like He built it    

[Don Stokes]

Sweetgum, you're sure right about all trees not being equal. On my place, there are white oaks that almost never produce, and only very little when they do. There are others that produce at some level practically every year, and in a good year will cover the ground. Guess where I have my stands?

I fertilized my orchard trees today. They're only four years old, and I don't know if it increases fruit production, but it sure makes them grow.

[John3]

I've used 12-12-12 in a broadcast spreader..  Just walk a circle around the tree.  I usually broadcast a bit wider than the trees drip line...

I have not noticed if my "helping" the trees has helped or not.. Years when the acorn crop is good ALL my Oaks "rain" nuts.  What a time to be in the woods when the nuts sound like a light falling rain... Magic time!

[swampdrummer]

Read the whole thread. Don't know if planting spikes will help or not but I do know that it will make me sit, just a little longer. Maybe that one extra acorn falling to the ground will call in that big buck... It may just be a confidence factor and if it is, I'll take it.

[Roy Steele]

I totally disagree numerous times I had deer feeding down a shelf but stay at my trees much longer.There was nothing else to cause the delay they could have fead on through.
   And I see years when the mast was low tree's I'd fertized had plenty.Years there was no mast deer when low to the fields to feed.They either feed there or feed through there on there way to the fields.
   Exspecialy when all the nuts were gone off the trees.The ones I fertized still had white oaks falling in mid to late Oct.
   Have any of you see anything that fertizer was put on it did'nt help.Only really shows in the mountains.To many food scorces down low.For it to really matter.Major food scorce in the mountains.
  One of my favor places in the mountains to call from.I kill 90% of my bucks through calling.And I've got boxs of racks and storge bens .More than a couple came from some of these spots.
   So when ever I hunt any of my mountain areas.It the timing right thats where I'll be calling from.

  Maybe I'd still call all those bucks up if the fertizer wasn't there.WHO KNOWS

[Biggie Hoffman]

You guys can argue all you want. I've known Liquid Amber for a long time. He doesn't post opinions. He KNOWS what he's talking about.
Even though it hurts my feelings a little bit cause I've been doing it for years now 8-(

Bottom line is, as long as you feel like it's helping you, then do it! Since every once of fertilizer is screened and I'm in the screening business, I think everyone should be spreading fertilizer!

[Don Stokes]

Biggie, why am I not surprised that your business has something to do with spreading fertilizer?    

Left yourself wide open for that one...

[Liquid Amber]

All I see is a pleasant discussion.  

I'm curious and skeptical by nature.

This "fertilization" topic interests me for many reasons.  I find a similarity between it and the notion that Maurice Thompson was wounded during the Civil War.

It's been passed on in article after article that fertilization increases mast production and that Maurice Thompson was wounded.  

It took a number of years to uncover the source for the wounding of Maurice Thompson but I finally worked it out.

I'm still researching the source for fertilizer/mast production.  The process is like working a blood trail.  You stay on it to you find the critter.  

I grow Satsuma oranges, Japanese persimmon and southern crabapple in our back yard...for at least 10 years.  Every year the fruit or mast production is different.  Sometimes you have an outside influence that can be identified, such as squirrels toting off the green persimmons in August.  That was easily solved.     The persimmons enjoyed a bumper crop last year and our resident mockingbirds worried over their persimmon stash well into this year.

Most years, my southern crabapples [two trees from seed I carried back from Columbia county, Georgia] have a pretty good mast crop but normally drop all by end of October.  This year they had a better than normal crop and held fruit on the trees until the 3rd of December.

This year our Satsumas set a large quantity of fruit but when the drop finished we had only 24 left, versus over 50 for the large tree the past year.  But, these 24 oranges obtained the size of grapefruit.  

Now, all three fruit/mast species had a significant change in production from the previous year.  I was sure in identifying one variable [the squirrels] because I saw the result of their activity the previous year and it's influence on my persimmon production.

The others present another issue.  I'd be foolish to say I know exactly what influenced the activities of each species and individual tree, because it's not possible.  I have a pretty good idea why, but that's just intuition developed from understanding the trees and influences that can cause variability in mast produciton.

When it comes to oaks, I will state with some degree of confidence, that you can do more with a chainsaw to increase mast production than you can with fertilizer.  

But, like many things in life, what we think we understand now, might easily change based upon more and better data or information.

[7 Lakes]

A mast is that tall pointy thing that grows out of the middle of a sail boat or it's a food produced by a tree.  ex.. acorns, wild cherries

[overbo]

Fertilize all you want but the shallow root bearing plants under and around your oaks will benefit from fertilizing far more than your oaks.
If one clears all competion away from the trees and airiate the roots.Your oaks will benefit far more than fertilizing.