We Planted 17 Acres of Oak Trees - Direct Seeding Acorns | Dream Farm w/ Bill Winke
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- Опубликовано: 15 июн 2024
- Direct nut seeding of acorns to produce oak trees is a practice I have done many times. Usually, it has been successful, but not always. The acorns we planted on 17 acres of old pasture land last October are doing very well. Here is an update on how they look and a quick how-to regarding the steps required to get a good stand of young oaks from acorns.
Here is a link to the Iowa State Forestry Extension Office white paper that I have been using as my guide to planting acorns: drive.google.com/file/d/1gtqd...
Free Webinar: I will be helping HuntStand host a web class on the subject of land management for deer hunting on Tuesday, June 18. If interested, you can sign up here: zoom.us/webinar/register/7917...
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Happy Father's Day Bill! And to all the great dads out there who work hard and love their families and the outdoors!
Thanks Daddy Lee. Happy father's day to you too!
Bill is living the dream, spending time outside with his kids! Keep the vids coming Bill! I enjoy them!
Thanks for the comment and the kind words. I appreciate it. Have a great day.
Jordan says we were covered in dust and bruises and Bill says you got to be tough. Love the relationship those 2 have.
This is how they learn the hard lessons of life. It is better to be the driver than the passenger and better to be the boss than the minion! See I am just helping them!
@@bill-winke I concur with you, I was just emphasizing how lucky Jordan is to have you as a Tough & Loving Dad. How lucky you are to have a Daughter that is amenable to your teachings/lessons.
Great job planting all those trees. Generations to come should be thanking you as well. Your painting analogy is spot-on - in the spots where your trees don't take root, natural processes will take over and other things will grow. Additionally, you can thin some of the oaks and in the space you create, other plants will take off. Good luck this fall.
Thanks Richard. I have done this several times on the farm we sold in southern Iowa dating all the way back to 2007. We did 20 acres that year. Most of that area is now solid oak trees 15 feet tall. A few areas didn't do well probably related to soil temperature the spring after the plantings and in some cases due to the quality of the seed.
Happy Father's Day to everybody. We still joke about how we celebrated Mother's Day a few years ago. Spent the day getting a tractor un-stuck! We still call it the great mother's day tractor pull!
That is funny. Happy Father's Day to you too.
It would be cool to see a yearly still photo of the progress of the tree growth! Great channel!
We will do that. Great idea. We need to pick one or two trees and key in on those. Have a great day.
Enjoy your videos. Great job Jordan. Your coming out of your shell.
Thanks Candy. We appreciate the support.
Great video refreshing us on the process and gently letting Jordan know there's more work! Father's Day is prime time tondrop this because she can't say no! Great work Winke team!!
Thanks Alex. Yes, that last 5 acres is hanging over our heads. It may be better than I think. There were little oaks there last spring but the Queen Ann's Lace covered them up. Now it is solid daisies. I am guessing that by the fall I will be able to tell if there are enough trees left in there or if we need to replant some day. Have a great day.
Looking good Bill. Happy Father’s Day!
Thanks Mike. Happy Father's Day to you too.
Awesome Dream series Bill. Happy Father's day!!! KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK !!!
Thanks Steve. I appreciate the comment. Happy Father's Day to you too.
@@bill-winke THANKS BILL
I'm really glad Jordan is getting more comfortable in front of the camera. I think I might have cut the bottom off of a milk jug and scoop them to throw so I don't have to bend over the tub so many times. If you ever get Jordan to hunting putting up her own stand and covering hunts your channel will take off. Women can just grow a channel faster than men. Some doing click bait thumb nail that go viral.
Jordan does bowhunt, but she is not super passionate about it. I think it is on her top ten things to do list somewhere below reading a good book! But I will take that. I love her and enjoy her company in the woods. She appreciates the warm October days, but is no fan of the colder days that follow. I bet I can get her to hang a stand. She is pretty strong and resourceful. That will be my goal for this coming season. Thanks for the comment. Have a great day.
Thanks for the update Bill, I did lots of bare root plantings over the years and it is a lot more work in my opinion. Direct seed is the way to go, but being the cheapest a$$ in the state of Illinois I would collect my own. I also would float them and planned on planting them the following day and when I came home from work the tree rats stole three five gallon buckets of nuts... never again! Happy father's day and be nice to your dad today Jordan.
Ken, I hate those things. They are just nasty little thieves posing as cute little critters. I am planting about five times more acorns than I need to create the desired number of trees per acre just to account for future predation from all kinds of stuff, including deer. I got this to work in southern Iowa where the deer density is much higher so I am very hopeful I can get it to work here too. Good luck.
Happy father day bill. I hope you have good luck with your trees. I did a few hundred swap oaks and persimmon trees last year from conservation root stock. Deer really like to brows on them
Thanks Steven. Happy Father's Day to you too. You probably need to tube some of them just to be sure to get some past the deer. Tubes are expensive, but after you take them off, you can reuse them on other trees later. Good luck.
Bill,
I planted around 5 acres last fall using about 40 bushels of red oak acorns. I'm trying to get some browse in old pasture land. I rototilled the ground with two passes, I then put garbage cans of acorn on a pallet on the front on my tractor. While my wife drove slowly, I tossed them out.
Afterward, I packed the ground by driving over it with my tractor tires. They came up great, probably too thick.
But now the grass is coming in so I will try the clethodim .
Thanks for sharing
Yes, you put in a very high rate, but it is better to have too many and then thin later, than to not get enough to for a full stand. Clethodim will remove the grass. Good luck.
Yes ....the operative word in steering or changing mother nature is "try" if she doesn't like what your doing you will "fail". 😅 Been there and I keep going back. Labor of love for sure.
Yes, some years this works really well, but some years, like last year, it is not super effective. It is definitely a labor of love. It is sure fun to see stuff grow!
I'd stand right on mower deck. Then wouldn't have to worry bout it bumping into you while walking beside it..work smarter not harder lol happy father's day bill
Yes, but that tractor was hard enough to control the way it was. Had to steer with the brakes. If I had let those guy on the back the tractor would have stood right up. Good thinking though.
Hey Bill, could you touch base on clearing your cedars again and maybe more about the Environmental incentives program if you’ve decided to do that and the benefits? I’m a young landowner trying to transform my property to the best of my abilities, your experience is really helping love the videos!
Thanks Jarrett. We will do that. In fact, we should probably do an update on the Goat Prairie - an area that the US Fish and Wildlife cleared of cedars on a very steep part of our farm. The goal is to turn it back into native prairie. Man, you should see all the stuff growing there now that the cedars are gone. I will update on that soon. Thanks for the support and good luck.
@@bill-winke Thank you!
Dream Big brother 🙏
Thanks Edward. You too.
Awesome,
Happy Father’s Day
You did a good job, attacking 17 acres is a lot. You will yield good results, in time nature will adjust what needs to be. It’s easy to get in there and thin them or add more later.
Not sure, 17 acres 5 bushels (?). About 2100 per bushel size varies, 90bushels X 2100 = 189,000 Oaks.
Walnuts interesting to see them pop up.
Thanks for the video today.
Robert, thanks. Happy Father's Day to you too. I think it is closer to 4,500 acorns per bushel, depending on variety. That is the number I have always used. Roughly 5 bushels per acre. That is roughly 22,500 acorns per acre or roughly one per 2 square feet. If we end up with 1,500 to 2,500 viable trees per acre after five years I will feel pretty good about it. Some spots will be less, others more. Then the high density areas will need to be thinned around year ten, I am guessing, maybe a bit before that. Walnuts will be roughly 30 per acre, is my guess. Have a great day.
Gr8 episode, I'm contemplating EQIP and had a forrester here. Not sure if I will do his plan exactly. My snag is their timeline and machine planting bucoo number of trees. I'm in the process of thinning out my standing trees and eliminating invasives like they want. Won't be overnight. My small acreage is attached to my neighbors several hundred acres timber loaded with deer so trying to make mine as attractive as possible. Your videos are a great help! Thanks!
Thanks for the comment Steve. I bet you can get them to lengthen the timeline for your project so it is more manageable. Good luck.
Bill & Jordan - I appreciate and enjoy your channel. It’s obviously a family effort.
Do you ever add conifers into master plan? I think it’s out of pure luck but my 1000s of oaks I’ve planted respond so well to having conifers around them. I’d love someone smarter to tell me there’s a true connection to my observation. I think your toss acorn approach provides a more mother nature feel vs rows of trees (guilty).
I have never tried that. The only conifers we have here are eastern red cedar and they grow pretty much anywhere they can. We spend time removing them. So, I don't have specific experience with the situation you are talking about. I am with you on the random versus rows final product, however. I suppose you could get the same thing by machine planting on zigzag course that crosses and intersects. It could be done with a lot more work. The random pattern is one of the reasons I like the direct seeding approach. Plus, we just really enjoy those little trees coming up. Something satisfying about growing a plant from seed. In the end, I want the farm to be really good for wildlife and general appearance. I want the farm to look as natural as possible. Good luck.
Awsome
Thanks Jarrod. Much appreciated.
Super awesome! I absolutely love watching your Dream Farm series. It's super interesting and very cool to see it coming together. You mentioned it some, but it would be cool to see more of a price breakdown/time breakdown? Price of the acorns per bushel, not sure if there were different qualities that changed the price. Also, if you kept track or even had a strong rough estimate of how long it took to disc the ground, plant the trees. Pretty much all the components. I am only thinking it would be interesting and a good resource to reflect on. I live in Ohio. I'm only 22, so some day, I would love to consider something like this on my own dream farm. Of course, time would change the prices, but regardless, I thought it could be interesting if you were willing to share. Thank you, and Happy Father's Day!
Thanks Clay. I appreciate it. I do have a full breakdown of time and expenses that I had to turn into the NRCS office for the cost share. Here are the numbers: I had 56 hours of supporting labor from employees, 60 total hours of my own, 8 hours spraying (steep ground so I had to use a 4-wheeler), 15 hours disking both before and after planting, 12 hours mowing with my 5 foot Bush Hog. Chemicals were roughly $2,000 (I didn't get the Pendulum sprayed for a few reasons not worth getting into), Seed was right at $6,000. Total was more than I thought: roughly $12,000 considering labor and tractor time (which you can charge for). Here is a breakdown of what I paid per bushel for acorns: White Oak: $50/bu, Swamp White Oak: $100/bu, Chestnut Oak: $100/bu, Red Oak: $50/bu.
@bill-winke OH wow, awesome. That is actually super helpful and exactly what I was wondering! Thank you very much for responding. Maybe a follow-up question regarding habitat for wildlife. I do expect it to be different for me, of course, since I live in Ohio. It's more of a two part question. I am very new, and the terms may not be correct as well. But do you ever enroll in any CRP programs/what is your takes on that kind of habitat? Then the other part is where do you go to learn information about those programs? I would assume DNR for your state? Again, I have done no research. I just thought of that as I was responding. Thank you again!
@@claylevan6037 Clay, the CRP is administered through the soil conservation office in your county seat. The organization is called NRCS. You can find it by searching the internet for the office in your county. You can learn a ton from them and from their website. My favorite CRP programs are the 15 year signups that allow you to plant trees. Those programs/practices have specific names that will mean something to you eventually, but I think the one I have used is the CP3 and CP3A (I like the CP3A because it allows hardwoods planting and a 15 year signup period. Here is the link to that website with tons of information. Knock yourself out: www.fsa.usda.gov/programs-and-services/conservation-programs/index
@bill-winke Wow, thank you very much! That is super awesome! I have followed you and your story with your new farm, and I feel like I've had thousands of questions about even how to get started, so that is awesome! I am very uneducated on any of the things you should know to get started, and I have not done much research but have gotten very interested in the past year or so. That information is very awesome and very helpful! Thank you very much! I look forward to your videos in the future! Also, big thanks for taking the time to reply!
How well has this worked on the farm that you're at now cuz I've watched you do this for the last 2 years and have yet to see the results/progress I'm not trying to be mean I'm really trying to learn if you're having success with it or not cuz I would like to do something similar thanks for any info you're a great guy Happy Father's Day
Thanks for the comment. Happy Father's Day to you too. If you watch the video closely I talk about that and show the results from the most recent seeding. I would say the 2022 seeding produced enough trees to be successful but not an over abundance. The 2023 seeding produced too many little trees. Unless nature intervenes I will have to thin in about 10 years. Like anything you plant, some years produce better growth than others.
NRCS..... EQUIP is the flagship conservation program within the NRCS.
Yes, that is correct. One of them. Right now the most opportunity is in the CSP programs.
Bill, what are your plans when it comes to thinning out the trees after a few years? Would it be possible to transplant the thinned trees to other locations on the farm?
Yes, it definitely would be and that is a great idea, actually. I had not thought of that. I might be able to talk Ben into buying a spade for his skid steer, or maybe I could rent the attachment. We could spend two or three days moving some (maybe I could even sell a few or give them away). I have transplanted cedar trees before using a Vermeer pull behind tree spade. I could do about 100 trees per day as long as I didn't move them far and stayed on it. I think if you were going to move them any distance, you would need to come up with a really good system for transporting or you would sure not get many moved per hour. Good input.
Interesting topic. I understand liking oak trees but if there are acorns everywhere, doesn't that make it harder to predict where the deer will feed?
Yes, but that will be 20 years from now. Who knows if I will even make it that long! Also, I am not necessarily trying to make this game easier. I enjoy creating the very best place for a deer to grow to its full potential and in some cases that will likely make them harder to hunt. The easiest deer to kill are the ones that are stressed in some way - you find their deficiency and exploit it. If they are stressed they won't be as healthy as they would be otherwise. So, the healthiest deer are the least stressed and those are also the hardest to kill. They don't need anything.
17 acres. No wonder these kids are in shape
Chicken or the egg - did they get in shape by doing this or did I pick them to do this because they were in shape. I will let you decide. A little hint - I sure didn't want to do it with a workforce that would shut down after a couple hours then I would be stuck doing it myself!
How are you controlling deer browsing? I’m taking an acre of lawn back to woods, it’s fun to watch it all grow. My family thinks I’m a nut, I keep telling them, no the nuts are in the yard.
They aren't browsing them yet. I am guessing there are just so many, and so much other stuff on the farm to eat right now that they aren't browsing them. Once they get another year or two on them, I am betting the deer key on the new growth each spring a bit more aggressively. I did this a few times on the farm in southern Iowa too and there were a lot more deer there. Basically, there was nothing I could do about it. It just took roughly twice as long as normal for the trees to outgrow the deer. It took them roughly 10 years instead of five to get above the deer. Then they really took off because they had those fully developed root systems. Good luck.
Will you go back in and thin them to your desired density after say year 3 once they have well established themselves? I like the idea of over planting with the assumption many won't germinate, or will be browsed off by wildlife. Followed you from the start at Midwest Whitetail and enjoying the new channel as well. Take care
Thanks Kash. Yes, once they establish themselves as being long-term trees (probably age six to ten) I will thin them at that time. That is when you really know what you have. Until then you still stand to lose a good number along the way.
@@bill-winke cool. I printed off that paper you had referenced in the past on this topic, I’ll have to give it a read.
@@kashbrown4649 That is the gospel on the topic, from my point of view. Good luck.
do you have any video footage of what these direct seedings look like 5-10 years after seeding from the old farm? Would be curious to see what the end goal looks like.
I do. I should have thought of that. I will have to really dig to find them, but I know I did a direct seeding follow-up during the Midwest Whitetail days too. I will see if I can find it. It was impressive. In some spots I had a thick stand of ten foot tall oaks in ten years. In other spots it was not as thick, mostly due to the deer eating them and keeping them from growing. I think the success rate will be higher here to get them to maturity because there are way less deer.
@@bill-winke thank you! i will see if I can find the old MWW video of it
Would it be possible to used a spreader on the back of your tractor to sling acorns ?
Possibly, yes. They make PTO driven cone spreaders that would possibly work. I haven't used one in the past because I often get my white oak acorns and they already have the small tap root coming out. If you break that off, the acorn is much less likely to produce. For that reason I have always chosen to hand spread, but if the acorns don't have any small roots coming out of them, the spreader should work well. Good luck.
Have you ever done any Chestnut trees?
Not yet but that is on my list. I have a good source for seeds so I think I will do it that way. I still have a lot to learn about chestnut planting and growing but I plan to start this fall.
I had some chestnuts outside. A squirrel got em. I trapped all of them until one found his way to the neighborhood. I hate those tree rats!
They are determined to ruin anything we try to do.
Instead of discing the seed in i would think a top dresser with a compost mix would cover the acorns more consistently
Probably would, but I don't have a top dresser or any compost to cover 17 acres. On smaller sites, that likely is a good solution. It would be ideal to also culti-pack after disking it in to assure good seed to soil contact. I didn't do that either relying instead on a near-term forecasted rain to do that work. As you will learn here, I like for nature to do the hard work.
@bill-winke I agree on letting nature do the work if possible.im a lawn care guy by trade and natural works great if you've worked soil properly but it's amazing what some compost bio char and humic acid can do short and long term for getting growth.
@@shaneshonda Agreed. Thanks for the comment.
Ever thought about doing this with chestnuts?
Yes, I have. I tried it with 100 chestnuts last year. Tried to stratify them in my fridge over the winter. The seeds died. Maybe they were dead when I got them off ebay. I have a guy that is going to send me a bunch this fall to try again.
Its not an easy task that's for sure. good luck. Not seeing a lot of people really putting this much effort in for the next generation of hunters. Keep it up
Why don't you get a fertilize spreader from your local ag co-op and spread the acorns that way
That would work, but I have worried about knocking that little root off that is sticking out of the white oak acorns by the time I get them. If the acorns come to me very soon after they hit the ground, that would work well. It would definitely work for the red oak family that germinate in the spring. But then what would those young kids have to complain about and how would they learn lessons about hard work. I guarantee those little trees mean a lot more to Jordan now than they would if I had spread the acorns with a machine. If I was alone, no help, I would have to use the fertilizer cart. Have a great day.
Where did you purchase the acorns from?
Brandon, I bought them a fellow named Steve Wixom in southern Iowa. He is one of several acorn seed collectors in the state. I found his name by calling first the district forester to see if he knew of anyone and then I got a list of all the private foresters in Iowa and started calling them, asking the same question. I turned up Steve and a couple others. I am guessing most states have people doing this. Collecting them would not be real hard, just time consuming. You can probably find literally tons on the ground in city parks and schools and golf courses (easy to pick with a nut roller) free for the asking. Good luck.
Any walnuts coming up?
Yes. We have a few. Maybe 10 or 15 per acre.
How you will maintain them for 3 years ?
You have to keep the weeds down for the first two years. Because you can't mow it due to the trees the only option is herbicide. Experts recommend Pendulum in the spring before green up. If there are some weeds already growing Oust XP is recommended. I have also found that you can manage a lot of broadleaf weeds after they come up using a herbicide called Sonora. You can remove grasses with Clethodim. Two years of good weed suppression should be enough but if the oaks are growing slowly a third year may be required to get above the weeds.
@@bill-winke TNX for explanation. In EU we can't use them in forestry,all manual with machete. But we do it once a year . Good job, congratulations.
Should have used half gal. Milk jugs cut bottom out make a slinger, to scoop seed n toss.😂
Yes, that is a great idea. You get a feel for it after a while though doing it by hand. I guess no matter how you do it, if you do 17 acres you will get a feel for it!
And it’s not in rows…
Which is better for wildlife, looks better and forest regeneration with random openings for future species.
Agree. I am not a fan of rows either. I had a biologist recently tell me that the rows eventually kind of disappear as some trees die off naturally, but I still like this random planting better.
@@bill-winke I agree when I planted mine with tractor I put my rows the short direction instead of the long way. Makes for more turning around but I wanted the predator shopping aisles to be as inconvenient as possible. It seemed there was no good way to do it with a tractor that wasn't a row. I believe we put in 6, 000 trees in 8 hours though so it is pretty slick.
That was a stupid amount of work to plant oaks so tight they couldn't produce anything. What your going to end up with is spindley trees without enough energy or space to produce. They will be 40 foot tall and 4 inches around. For top acorn production no more that 75 basle feet to the acre. You know it's simple to build a drill to plant them. A modified potato planter does a great job. Going to take a lot of thinning to get to a productive stand for ether timber or acorns. I just thinned 20 acres that was done at a half rate of what you did so I know exactly what the results will be
I would rather thin than not have a stand. I just follow the white paper written by the Iowa State University Forestry Extension to the letter. I have done 6 of these now. Some produce really well on perfect years but others struggle on less than perfect years. If you what the following spring is going to be like you can dial in the perfect rate but otherwise you have to plan for less than perfect germination and survival.
@@bill-winke yes to broadcast any seed you have to spread at least 30 percent extra. Best off to drill in 1/4 the first year and the add if needed the next fall. At the thickness of the stand you have of the little trees you won't be able to thin and leave in woods be so thick deer can't get threw. I only been do this 40 years. Oaks are easy to start yourself in paper pots and then takes one person and a garden tractor to put in 50k a day
A paper pot is a string of seed cups on a long strip. Mostly used by market gardeners to quickly plant crops. You can get cup spaces from 6 inches to 2 feet witch I do use a lot for oaks and red cedar. Planted on 25 foot rows gives a screen and still open ground for plots. No I don't care about deer a giant buck means nothing to me but I do spend every day setting places up to hold deer as part of the logging and replanting. A garlic planter also works well seeding oaks but to small for walnut
Positive input!