swamp oak

[Randy88]

A neighbor planted a lot of swamp white oak trees a few years back, they look great, he had excellent luck with keeping them alive and his red oak's didn't do too good, about as much luck as I've been having getting them up and growing. 

I've been looking, swamp oak in some books are called pin oak, bur oak and white oak, each book I've read on the subject is directly contradictory to each other.   I'm looking for someone who can tell me what exactly are the characteristics of the tree.   I'm not wanting pin oak, and not overly fond of bur oaks.  I'm wanting to plant something for lumber decades down the road or something of value that could be sold, I don't need to plant firewood material, we have enough of that already.   

I've also read swamp oak is for resistant to oak wilt, is this true and also why??   

Thanks for any information in advance.   

[mesquite buckeye]

Swamp white oak is in the white oak group, although maybe not the best one lumberwise. Pin oak is in the red oak group and typically one of the less valuable ones. Bur oaks are in the white oak group and one of the best adapted in Iowa. You can get high quality lumber from forest grown bur oaks. I have lots of them in Missouri and I like the lumber. ;D

[Clark]

All you will ever need to know about oak or any other hardwood, scroll down to Quercus:

http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/silvics_manual/volume_2/vol2_Table_of_contents.htm

Clark

[mesquite buckeye]

The above is essentially the online copy  of Agricultural Handbook No. 271, Sylvics of Forest Trees of the United States. Excellent reference, especially regarding species adaptations and growth, but limited in its description of the woods of various species. A better reference for the wood quality and uses is an old but still useful book Knowing Your Trees, by Collingwood and Brush, 1964.

To save looking it up here is a quick summary, more accurate than my off the top of the head thoughts:

Swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor Wood similar to white oak, but denser (50 lb/cu ft, WO 48 lb/cu ft.
     My comments regarding SWO were from my memory of a conversation with a Missouri forester, who thought this  species was less desirable to lumbermen. Some of you guys who actually harvest both white oak and SWO might chime in here with your experiences.

Pin oak, Quercus palustris Considered one of the lower quality red oaks due to numerous pin knots, hence the name. Also noted for problems of collapse and checking during drying. Too bad, as this oak has an excellent growth form and rapid growth. A relatively short lived tree compared to northern red oak. 44 lbs/cu ft.

Bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa A high quality oak of the white oak group. 45 lbs/cu ft.

All of these wood weights should be considered ballpark, as anyone who has cut a number of individuals of any species of tree will notice considerable variation between trees in weight/cu ft.

[wesdor]

10 years ago our state forestry consultant recommended that I plant SWO.  I planted about 100 and they are doing very well.  The state forester claimed they were very desirable for lumber, but I figure it will take at least another 50 years before they are mature, so someone else will need to do the harvesting
:D

[Randy88]

Thanks for the replies, I'm not wanting pin oak at all, if the tree's are not close enough and healthy enough the tree ends up being firewood at best, if sawed we used to put the lumber into sheeting boards.   

All the burr oaks I've ever been around were in the open, usually by themselves or a few in the same area, most all were in the area of 4 plus feet in diameter and at best made firewood, most ended up going into a brush pile to be burned.   If I'd have them in a timber, how do they grow, still all knots and branches or do they have a greater tendency to grow straight and tall.     

Anyone have pictures of burr oaks in a timber situation, there are none near me that I know of.     

Anything I plant I'll never see to maturity, its been said you plant the tree so someone else has shade and can harvest, which I'm fine with, but at the same time, we're having a hard time to get red oaks to grow and live and I've got enough firewood tree's, I certainly don't need to plant more of that.   

Our ash tree's I'm guessing will soon be dead, I'm beginning to wonder just what there is that I could plant that will ever make it to maturity to be able to harvest.    Now if there is a disease that kills only boxelders, or make them not able to reproduce, that would be useful.   

[mesquite buckeye]

Here is an old youtube vid I took in Missouri. The light colored tree trunk just to the right of the hickory I'm dropping is a bur oak. That is my most common white oak group tree and can be over 30 feet to the first branch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C__b51TAh_I

By the way, my farm is in north central Missouri at the prairie-forest margin.

[Randy88]

Thanks for the video, nice looking tree's.   

[mesquite buckeye]

Some of them get little epicormic branches (like 1/4" thick), especially after a thinning, but those usually die and rot off as the forest fills back in.

[Randy88]

Have you sawn any burr oaks for lumber, what does the lumber look like, sorry to pester you, but you have my curiosity up.   Can you noticeably tell the difference between burr oak and white oak in the lumber?

[mesquite buckeye]

A lot of the big bur oaks in Missouri get made into barrel staves, and they generally get a premium for those. They also like good white oaks for that use.

I only have a couple of white oaks on my whole farm, so I can't compare from experience. What I have noticed is the white oaks predominate in places with poorer, thinner soils. Where I live the soil is very deep and of moderate fertility. Bur oaks are very deep rooted and do well in competition with grasses and are quite drought tolerant. There are big die offs of white oaks during severe drought years.

My predominant white oaks are bur oak, post oak in the graveley droughty areas, chinquapin oak (not many) and white oak (very few).

Most of my farm was high graded in the mid 1980's, so much of my bur oaks that were big were limby wolf trees or edge trees. The lumber from these is pretty, but the figure causes them to move a lot during drying. The majority of what I have cut is from smaller, under 12" trees cut during thinnings. I have also cut some medium sized trees to get some pieces for exposed rafters for fixing up an old granary that we now use as a drying shed. Those were pretty well behaved. I have a lot of good trees getting close to harvest size now as we continue to do periodic thinnings. These are now in the 14-20" dbh range and there are a lot of them. Most of these were in the 8-14" dbh range when I started to manage the woods in 1992. I'm thinking these will be really good timber when it is their time. I have found that northern red oaks grow much faster and need to be harvested earlier in mixed relatively even aged stands like I have on much of my farm. As the red oaks come out the bur oaks will get the room they need to keep on growing. I think we can grow them into the high 20 to low 30 inch range before they start to degrade. That is what I am aiming for.

Tough to kill nice looking straight oaks when they are little, but if there is a good walnut or cherry nearby, bye bye.

Bur oaks are supposed to be less dense than white oaks, but I haven't seen this in my trees. Mine are heavy and hard, but they sure are pretty. I like their look whether plain, rift or quarter sawn.

Hope this helps. ;D 8) 8) 8)

[Randy88]

Yes that helps a lot, thanks for the reply.   

[5quarter]

Hi Randy...Bur Oak is a slow grower. I've cut forest grown trees that were 20" dbh and had 120 growth rings. It is a little "browner" than NWO. A very handsome wood either flat or QS.

[mesquite buckeye]

Mine are 5-8 rings per inch in Missouri with light thinning.

[Randy88]

Right off the top of your head, any idea how this compares to red oak or pin oak for growth rings per inch?   

No matter what, the best I'll ever be able to do it see some smaller tree's grow, I'll never be around to see anything of size no matter what I plant, let alone be here to harvest anything.   

Is it true swamp white oak and some of the others are more tolerant to oak wilt and if so, why?    Or is it one of those deals, where red, pin and some of the other oaks will die one year and the rest the next year, or is there something to oak wilt resistance?

We just walked the timber late yesterday, some nice cherry's have started to show up, we're going to plant even more of them, walnuts have started in area's we planted nuts but had no tree's there before and now if I could just be oaks to grow and survive, most everything we planted in the last three years are now dead in the tubes, really frustrating to say the least.

[mesquite buckeye]

I think red oaks are generally faster, but it seems to me that the white oak group trees can be grown a little denser, so your total wood yield may be similar. White oak group trees seem to be resistant to oak wilt.

Both walnuts and cherries do ok in Iowa.

Do you know why you are losing your little trees? Deer? Drought? Poorly adapted? Too close to existing trees? Weed competition? etc. It will take work to figure out why your trees did poorly.

Lots of times the trees aren't really dead, but just died back and are resprouting near ground level. Those will often make it eventually.

Check out MO Trees for a taste of what I had to go through to get a stand.

[Randy88]

As for why we are having so much trouble getting red oaks to grow, I've chatted extensively with the local forester and he had no idea why red oaks are so hard to grow and get going, according to him, I'm doing everything right, but am having very poor results, much like most who try it.   They make it fine the first year, but don't survive and green back up the next year, he had basically no more ideas to try, so that's why I'm asking here about ideas as to what to try, what species of tree's to try besides red oak.     

We've had great luck with walnuts and not too bad with cherry's but anything in the oak family is hard to get going and to make it past the first year, last summer we had about 100 red oaks going and this spring and summer, all but about a half dozen are dead.

Next spring we're going to try chemicals and spray around the timber where we are going to plant new seedlings and give that a try, we've been using tubes because we couldn't get anything to survive without them.     

Everyone seems to think we are having a severe deer problem, the last few winters have been really harsh, not sure if that's the issue or not or just a contributing factor on top of some of the rest.    We're really thinking the stinging nettles are also a factor, we've sprayed around in the timber the last couple years to try to keep them knocked down and was hoping to kill them off somewhat before trying again with seedlings.     

I really think the wildlife are totally scavenging the acorns and none are left to grow, is the reason why they are not reseeding themselves, we've noticed that in timbers where there are dogs and people nearby that keep the deer at bay somewhat, have no problems with oaks reseeding themselves.   

I do have a really wet area of the timber I want to plant something that will survive wet conditions besides willow and cottonwoods, the reason why I was asking about swamp oak in the first place.   

[mesquite buckeye]

Could the herbicides be affecting the oaks? Most of mine took several diebacks over many years to die. I don't use any herbicides at all in my plantings and hope the existing vegetation will hide the trees from the deer. That worked great last year. We got something like 90-95% survival of last spring's planting, and probably better than half are growing great, the rest are reduced to short sprouts that are building roots. If the deer leave them alone they will start putting on height in a year or two.

How close are these trees being planted to existing timber? If they are getting planted in the woods, then you add in root competition with the big trees as well as reduced light availability.

I think some photos of your plantings, both in places where it failed as well as where some of the trees made it would be enlightening.

Both black walnut and cherry will grow in some pretty wet places. Just how wet is your wet? Are we talking standing water, poor drainage, heavy soils or what?

The walnuts we thinned out and selected in the early 70's at my uncle's place in Ohio are in a place that stays pretty soggy for months at a time from slow runoff from the whole 10 acres of woods and they are doing great. Clay soil. The big ones are like 16" and 30 feet or better to the first branch.

[beenthere]

 In '98 I planted about 1500 northern red oak, and have been pleased with how well they are doing. They were seedlings (2-0 stock IIRC) and mixed every other tree with white spruce.
These were planted in sod that had been in the CRP program for several years. Did some individual tree spraying to knock down grass, and kept the grass mowed for at least 8 years until the spruce were too close together to get between them.
In the early years, the deer browsed heavily on the red oak buds. Tried the rotten egg spray stuff but it didn't last long. Was successful putting a paper popcorn bag on the terminal buds one fall after buds were set. They held up well that winter. Seemed to give the trees a breather and only did that one year.
Then the white spruce grew like gang busters and really have crowded the red oak, so now am working to cut out the spruce and impressed with the height of the red oak.
Rough sequence of pics over time. The last few where spruce have been removed, and the next to last one where a row has been cleaned out of the spruce. The spruce grew too big, too fast for my liking. Now are a lot of work to remove.
Last pic a week ago with some new fawns.


  

  

 


  

  

 


 

[mesquite buckeye]

Looking good. Wish I could see the deer and undamaged trees at the same time at my place. :(

[Randy88]

We'd never used herbicides in the timber for over a hundred years since the family owned it till we cleared a lot of junk debris tree's and willows off one end, maybe a couple acres, which is also the area for drainage of many acres of crop land from a valley above, many times in the last decades it has had feet of water flowing over it for days to weeks at a time until the water drains away, for as long as the family has owned it, this area is always flooded, when I cleared off the junk I also landscaped it for a drainage channel down the center of it so it won't stay flooded for weeks, now its down to days at a time.    Its deep black dirt in the low area, in the spring we can't drive anything in there, we usually get to the back of the timber during the winter or fall times or even late summer now that its landscaped.    I've added some rock crossings so we've been able to get around in the timber now during the summer if its dry out, been a few weeks since it rained last.     

At that time, I treated the junk tree's stumps with tordonRTU and also the willow's were sprayed with it before we ground them out so they were dead, that was about 15 years ago, we waited about three years to try to plant any tree's so the chemicals would dissipate and not be a factor, we've been trying to get red oaks to grow and survive since then, every year plant a couple dozen or up to 50, not much luck so far, its only been last summer and this summer I sprayed 2-4d in the timber to kill the nettles.   

Since clearing out junk firewood tree's we now have another bare area maybe 200 feet by 300 feet with absolutely no tree's in it whatsoever, along with the drainage area of maybe 150 feet wide by 1000 feet long with nothing but a couple cotton woods who's days are numbered since they are clustered and mainly worthless even for firewood, I just haven't had time to clear them out.     

I've already gotten walnuts to grow throughout the entire 20 acre timber except these area's, I'm now thinking maybe I've gotten too many of them already but can always thin them out later on.   

Over the years the timber has been harvested several times and sold the logs, many times the family has cut and sawn logs for personal use, a lot of logs have gone for personal use, since we had our own sawmill and did our own construction of buildings on several farms over the past generations.   

Right now we're down to less than 25 mature red oaks in the whole 20 acre timber, absolutely no small red oaks but a few we've gotten to grow, I don't think there has been a single red oak seedling grown on its own in over 50 years, maybe longer, we've never cut for firewood a single red oak tree in the last 50 plus years, at one time it was mainly red oak and hard maple timber, in its day it had a lot of nice elm tree's as well.    The last five years or so I've cut all the dead and small elm tree's, might as well, they never get much over 6 inches before dying anyhow, this has really opened up the timber and made it look bare.   

We have a lot of maple to cut for firewood yet, that will never make a good saw log, up until I started burning firewood, its been over 40 years since firewood was cut out of the timber.

In the past it was believed by the family members who were in charge of the timber red oaks would reseed themselves and there was no need to plant tree's, about 30 years ago I started planting walnuts and cherry, walnuts took off pretty good on their own.   

[mesquite buckeye]

2,4 D affects broadleaf plants, including oaks. I would be very careful with that stuff around broadleaf tree plantings. Also, if I remember correctly 2,4 D can volatilize and damage adjacent plants. Tordon is a soil active herbicide and can cause injury for years. However if your nearby trees are unaffected you are probably ok with that one.

When it gets into summer and gets a little dry, the effects of nearby trees removing water can extend as much as 50 feet into an opening. Any trees planted in this zone will have a harder time getting established. You can observe this effect if you look at crop plants near a woods or fence row. The closer the plants get to the trees the worse the stress and the smaller the plants.

I bet you could grow sycamores in the wet spot in addition to the water tolerant oaks, walnut and cherry. i would sure consider trying to grow more of the high value trees if they will work. They are worth at least double what you can get for an oak. Can't have too much walnut. (old saying)

Photos please. ;D ;D ;D

[mesquite buckeye]

One more thing if it hasn't been mentioned by me or anybody else. Can't remember....

Oak requires high light for establishment. If you thin your forest, you may see some red oaks popping up on their own. ;D

[Randy88]

Values of tree species change over time and what the market demands or will pay for, I'll never harvest a single tree I ever plant, and who knows for sure what species will be valuable when these are of harvest size and quality.      We can only guess and try a variety of species so when a new unknown disease comes along and wipes out something, we have enough diversity left to sustain a good healthy timber. 

The reduced rate on 2-4d we've been using is so little it takes a long time to even wilt nettles let alone damage any tree's or seedlings, 2-4d is a poor brush killer at best, we've used dozens of chemicals over the years on crop ground and fence rows on other properties, a weak solution we've using won't even wilt the leaves on any tree let alone damage or kill it, I'm not concerned at all about chemical damage on seedlings being the culprit, but yes your right, it can pick up and drift, but if it would, the nettles are the first thing to show signs of chemical damage which as of yet hasn't been the case, the other issue is in a timber its usually too cool to cause drift issues, I can't recall for sure, but I'm thinking we're using 1/10 of the minimum rate.

I'll have to go look, we've been having rain and its been a month or so since I was last at the timber, but I'll see what I can do about photo's.

[tmbrcruiser]

I have only passed through Iowa and know nothing of the oak species in your area. I live and work on the Delmarva Peninsula, we have swamp white oak and swamp chestnut white oak. Both very similar and widely used as timber in our area. The logs tend to have a lot of sap wood and are not considered for veneer. You may want to try planting willow oak which grows in the same locations as swamp white oaks but is in the red oak family. Willow oak is another mid grade oak species but will grow on wetter sites.