Timing rx fire with white oak acorn bumper crops?

[BrandonTN]

Does anyone have any experience promoting oak (especially white) advance regen germination timing fire with acorn bumper crop years? Ive read that an ideal situation is to time low-intensity fire with bumper crop years so that the litter and duff layers are reduced and the bumper acorns can fall on mineral soil for successful germination. What are the tell tale signs of a bumper year?

I would think even if burning is a few years before a bumper, at time of acorn fall theres probably still an increase of mineral soil exposure compared to not having burned at all...in which case, perhaps timing perfectly is not that imperative. What IS imperative is that i minimize timber damage from the fire. Next question is, how to burn and not scorch the overstory trees/reduce timber value?

[nativewolf]

First, great to see your post.  More should be done on this area from a scientific POV and sadly....it is lacking.  We target WO stands because of the relative scarcity in Northern VA due to conversion and age and fragmentation.  Terrible future prospects.

You have a nice WO stand?  

• How many acres?
• What surrounds the stand?
• What size trees?  Any old cloth tape measure will give you circumference and you can convert into diameter.
• How many trees per acre?
• What other crown dominant tree species and how many of those per acre and what size.

A quarter acre plot for sampling purposes would be 59', put a stake in the ground and measure out your 59' any tree within that circle count it by species (if you can, no worries) and diameter.  

The reason I ask all this is because ..oak seedlings will need some sunlight and you don't want junk WO being the seed source or scarlet oak either.  Success growing oak under oak is dependent upon having a decent number of acorns germinate following a bumper crop.  Very helpful to have some additional light in the understory at that time.  Removing the black gum, red maple, and hickory will usually provide enough additional light for the acorns to germinate.    You may already have a decent number of seedlings, have you looked/counted?

After germination the growth of a WO seedling is interesting, they can essentially go dormant, waiting for the chance to respond to increased light conditions.  During this period they can be browsed by deer many times and still be just fine if there is enough sunlight to allow a new flush of leaves.  They can live in this state for several decades, the whole time below knee height, as long as they are not browsed to death or the stand gets too shady (redmaple or beech dominating the midstory would cause this for instance).  

At some point they are going to respond to sunlight and shoot up or they wither and die.  Getting the sunlight to them is the critical thing in all this.  

Walking it back a bit here:  

The reason a fire promotes the regeneration is not only that there is some soil exposed but that it kills the midstory.  Midstory shade producing trees like beech, maple, blackgum, etc will die back a bit creating lots of light which is great for promoting regeneration (of anything including maple, native grasses and flowers, etc).  

However, if you don't have plans to re-intervene in 5-15 years you begin to lose the possibility of turning those seedlings into trees.  They will not start growing into saplings unless additional sunlight is provided and then it needs to be a significant amount.  A dense shelterwood is a start point but then it needs to be maintained and that means constantly removing the overstory.  For this reason if you do have a good crop of seedlings on the ground you may be better off moving to a clearcut or thin from below harvest if long term sustainability of the WO resource is the only constraint and objective.  

In our management strategy for older declining WO stands we do a Timber Stand Improvement (TSI) in conjunction with a thin from below selection process to remove all the poorly formed WO, those with epicormic sprouting, and a significant amount of the co-dominants that are not WO.  Our tracked up CTL equipment does  good job of providing some mineral soil exposure and our stands have had some insane WO response.  Too moist a site and the yellow poplar response is really so fantastic that we'll have to cut and remove YP in a TSI to get any WO.  Our contracts are for 30 years so we have that luxury or curse.   Overall we are trying to promote regeneration of WO trees from best genetic sources so during our initial harvest we mostly leave all the best trees.

We don't manage  single WO stand of less than 100 years.  Most are 150-250.  That may change next week with a 1600 contract that has some younger WO...we hope so.   Not sure if my recommendations would change for younger trees or not.  Don't really think so just maybe we'd be picky and slow.  

On fire:

Fire is useful but can damage WO stems.  Even if it does not kill them it can cause defects and scars that WILL impact future harvest values.  We've seen this is harvest from Alabama (longleaf/WO piedmont stnds to WV WO stands burned from railroad fires).  We plan to burn an upland WO stand this spring but it is a very dry site and the WO are 16" and 150-200 years old.  We don't plan much timber value there, just wildlife enhancements.  If some trees get scars so be it.  It's going to look great and the landowner is paying.  

If you have WO seedlings on the ground you likely don't need to do anything other than start providing light.  If you never provide significant light you'll never have a future WO stand from those seedlings so is fire really what you want?  They must get a significant amount of light to grow into saplings, to do this the crown of the dominate trees must be at least 30' apart so that they won't close canopy before the saplings get to 10-15' tall.  At this point they need all the sun so, you'll have to intervene again by removing more dominant crown trees.  This slow gradual process works best for stands with needs other than just timber and those usually are aesthetics.  It will still look like a forest and the property value will still reflect a nice forest.   Our area is highly fragmented with many small parcels, a big woodland is 500 acres.  We harvest down to 20 acre lots, powerlines everywhere, fences, yuck.  Keeping property values high is important.

Lots of words there.  Key point being seedling germination is just 1 step to getting a WO stand.  Know what your objectives are and consider if fire is really the best tool.  Know that you may well have butt damage if you burn and that burning is a bit of an art and unpredictable.  If humidity drops unexpectedly (or rises) the fire may not do what you expect (more or less kill), etc etc.  We really like fire but don't burn stands where we expect veneer WO sales.  Just too much risks to us.

If you want to discuss on a phone call send me a PM.  If you want to see what we mean by thin from below in a WO harvest we are doing some right now close to Culpepper VA, stop by.

[Ron Wenrich]

This is a good read from the Forest Service:  Quercus alba L

It covers a good look at the seedling development.  There are things to take into consideration. 

I would routinely take a sample cruise of a stand.  But, I use variable plots using an angle gauge or prism.  A lot quicker and the data is just as useful.  If you look in the Knowledge Base (look at the extras above), I have it written out how to perform such a cruise, and crunch the numbers.  Compass and pace at about every 200' will give you a 10% cruise.  After crunching the numbers, you'll be able to see what your stocking densities are, and in what species and diameter classes.  I've used these cruises and they're pretty accurate, and fast to carry out.

For reproduction studies, I would use a 1/100th acre plot, which is a 11.8' radius from a fixed pt.  This will give you an idea of how much advanced reproduction you have.  You might find out you don't really need any more than you have.  Again, data is important.  A good repro number is 1,000 seedlings per acre. 

White oak is very long term mgmt compared to many other species.  They're more of a climax species than a pioneer. 

[chep]

@nativewolf 
 Do you have thoughts on phenotype vs genotype in your leave trees. 
I believe it has been shown in white pine that wolf white pines will throw the same quality seed as a nice straight white pine. It just happens to be the growing environment that presents a wolf tree instead of a timber tree. I don't have a study in hand but have been told that by several astute foresters. 
 I know that can be an excuse to high-grade a stand. But if several large and prolific seed producers are left to seed in patch cuts then why leave the highest quality mature trees? Why not capture that value now and then cull the poor formed seed throwers down the line? Sometimes it seeks risky to open up that nice mature tree to epicormics or wind throw and then lose the value down the line. 
I know there are lots of ways to do thi gs just curious on your thoughts on that. 

[nativewolf]

we'd probably cut a wolf pine type tree because of the crown space it occupies.  RE phenotype and genotype we know..proven die hard cold know that genetics are important.  Just as we moved most of our ag crops over thousands of years to much more productive seed we have done the same in pine and euc.  However, in our mixed hardwoods forests we have done the opposite.  Take White Oak bole and root buttress.  When cutting a nice wo by hand (crosscut and axe) cutting root buttresses was time consuming and painful so they'd cut the straightest tree that had the least buttress.  A few centuries of bad harvest in and it is rare to see WO with little root buttress but we can assume they were common before.   In our older old WO stands we see some WO that go straight into the ground with no buttress, amazing nice trees.  

In lob pine improvement they looked very carefully at branch angles .  Many trees had pronounced sharp branch angles which drove the knots deep into the core at sharp angles so lots of boards had knots.  They have mostly eliminated that with selection.  

In white pine I'm not sure of the desired phenotype vs undesirable.  In wo we know some.  What we are sure of is that a perfectly formed WO is worth more than one with bad phenotype.  In a couple of years our genetic testing will be finished and we'll know if the better trees are indeed genetically different.  This is not a hard test, just have to collect and get sampling done.  In 18 months I should be able to answer.  

[nativewolf]

This is a good read from the Forest Service:  Quercus alba L

It covers a good look at the seedling development.  There are things to take into consideration.  

I would routinely take a sample cruise of a stand.  But, I use variable plots using an angle gauge or prism.  A lot quicker and the data is just as useful.  If you look in the Knowledge Base (look at the extras above), I have it written out how to perform such a cruise, and crunch the numbers.  Compass and pace at about every 200' will give you a 10% cruise.  After crunching the numbers, you'll be able to see what your stocking densities are, and in what species and diameter classes.  I've used these cruises and they're pretty accurate, and fast to carry out.

For reproduction studies, I would use a 1/100th acre plot, which is a 11.8' radius from a fixed pt.  This will give you an idea of how much advanced reproduction you have.  You might find out you don't really need any more than you have.  Again, data is important.  A good repro number is 1,000 seedlings per acre.  

White oak is very long term mgmt compared to many other species.  They're more of a climax species than a pioneer.

Good points Ron.  For non foresters it is pretty simple to do a fixed plot without any investment, for foresters..yes the prism is much faster.

[chep]

@nativewolf

Thanks for the response.  I know nothing about white oak regen. It was just a question that seems like you have addressed before. 
I have seen nice regen in southern vt in patch cuts over an acre.  Nice dispersal and enough sunlight. Small Patches under an acre that weren't open enough had more beech. Maybe a couple wo in the dead center.  Where I am there is a small ridge running perfectly north south. a couple hundred ft above the Connecticut River . This ridge holds the only white oak that I know about. Must be the right soil or something.  I've logged on this landform for about a 20 mile stretch in diff properties and they all had them. But any higher in elevation they disappear from the forest. 
 I feel like these wo remnants could help repopulate our river valley with more diversity and another timber specie but need good forestry to help that happen, I assume there was a booming wo population at one time and then humans wiped them out of the area and they are having a hard time taking hold. Also they are a special treat to deer and turkeys...

[nativewolf]

I would say that's a pretty special little spot then, hope your forestry dept knows about it.  Yes, they need their sunlight later on, and here we have quite a bit of WO on really dry sites and in those site the mature crowns never really close canopy and the seedlings can be quite heavy.  Any crown impacts and they'll start taking off but if it is not enough sun they'll die in a few years.  

[Ljohnsaw]

I know nothing about forest management and this thread is amazing.  I'm just dealing with cedar, red & white fir and ponderosa.  Got some oaks but not a lot at the elevation (5,780').

A good repro number is 1,000 seedlings per acre.

But, back home at 600' at my house, the oak trees (not WO) next to my driveway seem to produce thousands of seedlings every year just in a 10' x 20' area.:(  If I don't pull them out when they first appear, they send a tap root down a good foot by the time they are 3" tall.

[Ron Wenrich]

Angle gauge is $14.25.  Practically indestructible, easy to use, and your eye is the center of the plot, not the prism. 

I remember doing an article decades ago about using a quarter as an angle gauge.  I believe it ended up being a dime to get close to the BAF of 10.  A lot depends on how long your arm is. 

Its not so much the quality of the equipment as the skill of the cruiser. ;)

[BrandonTN]

Nativewolf....thanks for the reply. Yeah, midstory removal via hack n squirt is the easiest for us, since rx burning is more difficult. Here in my neck of woods in the NC mtns, im rarely dealing with pure oak stands (although mostly pure hardwoods) and im also trying to regenerate oak on the wet end of the oak spectrum. In many 90-100yr old mixed oak-hickory-other hardwood stands(oak is mostly red oak) there is many times a sheer lack of advance oak regen (>3ft tall) and only moderate amounts of oak germinates or small regen, and those usually have lost apical dominance and have stagnated. Regen is dominated by shade tolerant spp (red maple, sourwood, blackgum, hazel, ironwood, etc) In these situations, a midstory alone w/o fire will prob not suffice. I figure topkilling by fire is needed to allow resprouting of more vigorous oak stems (and kill competition, ofcourse) that will restart with more partial light (including a midstory hack n squirt in combo with fire.) But this is for stands mixed oak/hardwood stands where there actually already is a fair amount of oak germinates...

The worst case is when theres not even much germinates or small regen, but still a component of NRO or White oak in the canopy (im talking maybe 25-30% of the overstory composition in oak, not a lot....and white oak will be only 5-10%). In these situations, i regard recruitment of any new germinates as a success, hence the focus on bumper crop years. Because, cant get to saplings without germinates....

In the drier oak ridgetop stands around here, chestnut oak is most prevalent and it regenerates really well (along with Scarlet). Regenerating oak there is easy enough, but its the midslope and covey areas that have oak components that are leading me to seek out bumper crop timed burns. Pure white oak stands are very rare, sadly.....

ljohnsaw...the CA oak savannahs are something beautiful. I worked for a bit over a year on the Los Padres NF, and i was struck by the sheer lack of oak regeneration under in the savannahs....the lack of fire and the thick non native grasses i think hinder acorn germination. I could be wrong, but ive wondered if the native grass there was more bunch grass and less of the thick matted, carpet like grass thats all over the place introduced from all the grazing (i could be way off on this)

[Clark]

Very interesting. I really enjoy the western NC hills (or is it mountains?) and the species diversity is incredible there. I was able to learn a couple of species but sourwood and blackgum(?), without leaves were looking mighty similar to this northerner! Working amongst all of it would be quite the trip.

NW - Your observations of WO sitting for years in the understory mirror what I see in bur oak in NW MN. They will sit there for years and years and barely grow. Just waiting for some sunlight. Most people think of hemlock, balsam fir and sugar maple as the species that do that and never consider oak.  You are right that more practical research is needed in this area.

A friend of mine worked for Pioneer Forest in MO. He claimed there was a definite genetic influence on epicormic branching in oak trees. They typically thinned every ~15 years and if they could (or if they could tell), they would take out those trees that had produced lots of epicormic branches in the last thinning. So it follows that other "lesser" traits that we tend to think are environmentally influenced, like buttressed roots, might actually be more genetic.

[SwampDonkey]

I'm confident that you'll find a dominant but not so great log tree will have equal genetics. People confuse environmental influence with bad genes. Just because a moose rubs the bark off a pine, or the heavy wet snow breaks off a birch top, then continues to grow, doesn't make the genes inferior. What can influence the seed development is tree stress, but that isn't genetics, it's environmental pressures. In other words, you may get correlation, but doesn't prove bad genes. You need a study with tight controls, with trees this will be decades. With black spruce, a much studied tree, We've found up here that tree selection for traits, followed by controlled pollination, seed collection, and out planting on a broad spectrum (replication) of sites has yielded about a 3% gain. Some of this started in the 50's. We found that New Brunswick black spruce has better genetics than from the other maritime provinces, probably due to having a more continental influence where as PEI and NS are more isolated by ocean. I often wonder how long before you loose the edge with wild pollen coming in and no controls over thousands of acres? I mean 3% gain down to 1%, is not a big step. :D Interesting note, with red pine, the genetic variation across it's range is insignificant. In other words, you can spin your wheels and spend lots of money with little to show for it. I agree you can't take seed from trees on wind swept mountain tops growing in rock out crops and expect them to produce decent trees. You select seed from your best sites and plant the seedlings on similar sites taking into account latitude and maybe even elevation (both influence frost hardiness). These trees are constantly influenced by climate, where as a moose rub might be once in 200 years. Big difference. All things being equal should not yield significant differences in the population. Nature knows how to weed out bad genes. With Scots pine, they collected the worst seed ever, brought it over here and produced cabbage pine trees that the weevils and sawflies love to chew up. :D

As to epicormic branching, we find in yellow birch and ash the older the tree, the less likely you get epicormic branching. I've seen pole wood thinned and it suckers, but mature birch with big crowns don't at all. I see a lot of yellow birch left standing on some hardwood ground when I'm thinning with a brush saw, great big mature trees. No suckers on them.
Same goes for stump shoots. However, red maple will stump sucker at any age. So won't basswood. Mature sugar maple or yellow birch don't at all.

Our cover type in New Brunswick is 60% hardwood, dominated by maple, yet we only study softwoods. It's a hard existence for hardwoods on the northern fringe of their range. With softwoods, we are on the southern fringe.

[nativewolf]

Very interesting. I really enjoy the western NC hills (or is it mountains?) and the species diversity is incredible there. I was able to learn a couple of species but sourwood and blackgum(?), without leaves were looking mighty similar to this northerner! Working amongst all of it would be quite the trip.

NW - Your observations of WO sitting for years in the understory mirror what I see in bur oak in NW MN. They will sit there for years and years and barely grow. Just waiting for some sunlight. Most people think of hemlock, balsam fir and sugar maple as the species that do that and never consider oak.  You are right that more practical research is needed in this area.

A friend of mine worked for Pioneer Forest in MO. He claimed there was a definite genetic influence on epicormic branching in oak trees. They typically thinned every ~15 years and if they could (or if they could tell), they would take out those trees that had produced lots of epicormic branches in the last thinning. So it follows that other "lesser" traits that we tend to think are environmentally influenced, like buttressed roots, might actually be more genetic.

We think the epicormic sprouting is clearly genetics as well.  We see stress related sprouting but at the same time we'll see some dominant canopy trees that are still actively sending out sprouts with no indication of environmental stress.  We also cut these out but, sadly, in our area of 300+ years of settlement it's likely the selection to leave this sort of tree is fairly pronounced and long standing.  They never made good barrels and WO was used for barrels from the get go.  

[nativewolf]

Nativewolf....thanks for the reply. Yeah, midstory removal via hack n squirt is the easiest for us, since rx burning is more difficult. Here in my neck of woods in the NC mtns, im rarely dealing with pure oak stands (although mostly pure hardwoods) and im also trying to regenerate oak on the wet end of the oak spectrum. In many 90-100yr old mixed oak-hickory-other hardwood stands(oak is mostly red oak) there is many times a sheer lack of advance oak regen (>3ft tall) and only moderate amounts of oak germinates or small regen, and those usually have lost apical dominance and have stagnated. Regen is dominated by shade tolerant spp (red maple, sourwood, blackgum, hazel, ironwood, etc) In these situations, a midstory alone w/o fire will prob not suffice. I figure topkilling by fire is needed to allow resprouting of more vigorous oak stems (and kill competition, ofcourse) that will restart with more partial light (including a midstory hack n squirt in combo with fire.) But this is for stands mixed oak/hardwood stands where there actually already is a fair amount of oak germinates...

The worst case is when theres not even much germinates or small regen, but still a component of NRO or White oak in the canopy (im talking maybe 25-30% of the overstory composition in oak, not a lot....and white oak will be only 5-10%). In these situations, i regard recruitment of any new germinates as a success, hence the focus on bumper crop years. Because, cant get to saplings without germinates....

In the drier oak ridgetop stands around here, chestnut oak is most prevalent and it regenerates really well (along with Scarlet). Regenerating oak there is easy enough, but its the midslope and covey areas that have oak components that are leading me to seek out bumper crop timed burns. Pure white oak stands are very rare, sadly.....

ljohnsaw...the CA oak savannahs are something beautiful. I worked for a bit over a year on the Los Padres NF, and i was struck by the sheer lack of oak regeneration under in the savannahs....the lack of fire and the thick non native grasses i think hinder acorn germination. I could be wrong, but ive wondered if the native grass there was more bunch grass and less of the thick matted, carpet like grass thats all over the place introduced from all the grazing (i could be way off on this)

Interesting...well you are far along and thanks for that note.  Ok, so not a novice trying to do the right thing.   We are also considering if we need to do topkill via fire to get apical dominance on sprouts.  Maybe next week i can send some pics of released oak saplings following a hurricane and another of regeneration following our thinnings.  I need to get back to the site with a better camera 
Have you tried doing midstory tsi combined with a harvest targeting non WO and seeing if the oak regeneration will develop apical dominance or if it stays multi stem?    If you get up to VA we'd love to get your input on our work.  

[nativewolf]

I'm confident that you'll find a dominant but not so great log tree will have equal genetics. People confuse environmental influence with bad genes. Just because a moose rubs the bark off a pine, or the heavy wet snow breaks off a birch top, then continues to grow, doesn't make the genes inferior. What can influence the seed development is tree stress, but that isn't genetics, it's environmental pressures. In other words, you may get correlation, but doesn't prove bad genes. You need a study with tight controls, with trees this will be decades. With black spruce, a much studied tree, We've found up here that tree selection for traits, followed by controlled pollination, seed collection, and out planting on a broad spectrum (replication) of sites has yielded about a 3% gain. Some of this started in the 50's. We found that New Brunswick black spruce has better genetics than from the other maritime provinces, probably due to having a more continental influence where as PEI and NS are more isolated by ocean. I often wonder how long before you loose the edge with wild pollen coming in and no controls over thousands of acres? I mean 3% gain down to 1%, is not a big step. :D Interesting note, with red pine, the genetic variation across it's range is insignificant. In other words, you can spin your wheels and spend lots of money with little to show for it. I agree you can't take seed from trees on wind swept mountain tops growing in rock out crops and expect them to produce decent trees. You select seed from your best sites and plant the seedlings on similar sites taking into account latitude and maybe even elevation (both influence frost hardiness). These trees are constantly influenced by climate, where as a moose rub might be once in 200 years. Big difference. All things being equal should not yield significant differences in the population. Nature knows how to weed out bad genes. With Scots pine, they collected the worst seed ever, brought it over here and produced cabbage pine trees that the weevils and sawflies love to chew up. :D

As to epicormic branching, we find in yellow birch and ash the older the tree, the less likely you get epicormic branching. I've seen pole wood thinned and it suckers, but mature birch with big crowns don't at all. I see a lot of yellow birch left standing on some hardwood ground when I'm thinning with a brush saw, great big mature trees. No suckers on them.
Same goes for stump shoots. However, red maple will stump sucker at any age. So won't basswood. Mature sugar maple or yellow birch don't at all.

Our cover type in New Brunswick is 60% hardwood, dominated by maple, yet we only study softwoods. It's a hard existence for hardwoods on the northern fringe of their range. With softwoods, we are on the southern fringe.

What we are looking at our hardwood stands that have had over 200 years of selective removal of better genetic material.  What's bad for us in not necessarily bad for the species.  This is why selective tree improvement works, some phenotypes are indeed tied to genetics and thus we can push lob pine at double the rates it used to take and a good chunk of that is genetic improvement.  
If you want to know why the brazilian euc plantations are getting better and better and producing so much volume it is not just better management of the plantations, they had students studying with Zobel in the 60s and 70s and 80s.  Genetics matter and for things like WO it is a bit of a race against time.  We're about to lose the last of the WO that were around pre western settlement.  

[SwampDonkey]

some phenotypes are indeed tied to genetics

Of course it is. No claim otherwise by me. Also finding and selecting for traits worked on by climate and site rather than random or planned circumstance has far superior outcomes.

As to the white oak, the lineage has been passed on to the next. You find yourself in oak on land that was less desirable for farming or cities. Thus not that great of a site. We always develop the best land first. Those original oaks with superior qualities had the best growing conditions. Now you find little pockets of good ground in a good climate, which is what is producing better genes. If you think putting these better oak on lesser sites will not in turn impact any genetic gains over time, you will be in for a surprise.

[Clark]

Back on topic...I was thinking about this topic and while a reduction in duff might help (not sure but bur oak regen doesn't seem affected by it) I would time the fire during the year so it is most detrimental to the competing species. So it has the greatest impact on those species that create the most amount of "low shade" which is the most detrimental to regen. If you can do that I think you are right about timing being less critical. If it's two years before a bumper crop, hopefully the affects of the fire are still putting a damper on the competing species.

Clark

[Ron Wenrich]

Somewhere, in my Forest Service research papers, is a study of the amount of years a seed source will remain viable in the soil.  If I recall, tulip poplar is 8 yrs.  But, the oaks are 2 yrs max.  Some need to germinate in the fall.  I believe that was chestnut oak.  Maybe I can dig that up.

Oaks aren't one of those species that are dependent on fire as a source for reproduction.  Seems your seedbed prep would be dependent on whether you have a good seed year.  Can you predict that in the spring?   Depending on the topography, scarification may be a better prospect if you are looking for a exposed soil seedbed. 

In my area, the best oaks are on northern facing slopes.  Southern western exposure yields dry sites, and lower quality.  A logger told me that white oak and pines will yield glass worm in the veneer, which is a reject. 

[Klunker]

I can somewhat speak to timing of fire and acorn drop. I'm no expert by any means. I have about 15 acres of woodland that I'm doing my best on managing for WO regeneration. I have burned several times, maybe 5-6 times so far. Keep in mind this applies to my neck of the woods, southern 1/2 of WI.

As far as acorn drop timing its usually early fall around here, late Sept to mid Oct. If conditions are good you could burn before that, say August. I usually burn in the fall around here, Nov. after all the leaves drop. That might harm the acorns, I don't know. But I do have WO seedlings that I run across while clearing the understory for seeding of grasses and forbs.



picture of WO seedlings in a cleared understory area that has been burned.

Otherwise some fantastic info in this thread. My woods are mostly shagbark hickory, WO, RO, Ironwood, Cherry, Sugar and Red Maple and some large older Popple (aspen). By looking at the understory forbs it appears that this area was a Oak woodland originally. There are some large WO and some smaller ones (6-18" dbh) This area was hit by a tornado about 6 years ago leaving many small openings in the canopy. Bout 10-15 years before that it was logged for a few of the nice larger WOs leaving everything else. What I'm doing is thinning judiciously around the WO to release them from some of the competition. Removing all of the smaller understory Sugar Maples and Ironwood. Killing and leaving all the Red Maple and Popple. This leaves a pretty much a more open woodland dominated by Shagbark Hickory and WO. As time goes by I will continue to thin the Hickory. I am thinning it now carefully as I don't want to open up to wind throw. I have planted WO in all of the more open areas left by the tornado with 2-3 yr seedlings purchased from the local county tree program.

I'm not concerned about lumber value of my trees. The WO that have been freed from competition for the most part have lots of epicomic sprouting. I'm fine with it, like I said I'm not concerned about lumber value but more with regeneration and recreating a more open natural open woodland environment like what was here before settlement times.

[stavebuyer]

Best WO regeneration I have seen followed shelterwood cuts in the LBL area of KY. TVA was stopped from doing any clearcuts due to lawsuits from Heartwood and other politics. They would leave some of the very best White Oak for seed and cut most everything else. Come back in 5-10 years and get the leave trees. Awesome regeneration and no fire needed. That was when TVA was doing the managing. Since the USFS took over they mostly worry about closing roads.

[SwampDonkey]

Most hardwood shelterwood up this way promotes birch. They cut all the maple and leave big old yellow birch. Very few maples coming back unless already established seedlings. And some stands have a carpet of maple on the ground. Most will die from sun scald and drought in that black duff layer.

[Freedy201]

Though topic,really though.