How to grow Red Oak trees from seed

hey guys in today's video I'll be showing you how to grow red oak oak trees from acorn so guys this is gonna be your end result right here is a beautiful sapling so what we're gonna do is go through all the steps Gavin seed process so without further ado let's jump right into it okay guys for step one and growing a red oak from acorn your first minute to gather your a quince and where I'm at right now this is a massive red oak I don't know exactly what species it is but I mean this guy's has to be at least 200 years old absolutely insane trunk beautiful high beautiful size you know it's absolutely a beautiful tree but quick thing I know it's red oak because you can look at the leaves and how they have these points and the tips that's a trait of a red oak White Oaks will have rounded tops not a tips in all on the ground guys ice finding these acorns another clear sign that it's an oak but red oaks drop their acorns in the fall time and right now we're in late September so it isn't really fall yet but we're getting there and you know there's littering these acorns all over the ground and that's because the trees the red oaks have to go through stratification which is a period of you know cold a cold period in order for the trees to the seeds to grow into you know mature trees not all trees need this white oaks do not that's the big difference between white oaks and red oaks and it's just a characteristic and that's how you can identify trees and you know the type of seeds they're dropping and when to figure out if they need to go through stratification or not because if you see a tree dropping its acorns you know whatever it is during the fall time then that means it has to go through stratification now that I have you know a couple eight points gathered I put a bunch from the neck up you know take these home and show you guys the next step we have collected our acorns from our red oak tree and these acorns are actually a Shumard oak tree so I did some research guys and you know after a couple little searches I figured it out but now we're gonna do guys is the water test and this is going to test which acorns are from the batch and which ones are good this is real simple guys all you got to do is pour the acorns into a bowl of water and all the acorns that end up floating are gonna be acorns that are bad either have larvae growing in them or you know they're just moldy on the inside or they gonna be a pocket inside now some of the acorns that float and actually still be good and still germinate and I'll actually show you guys an example of that this is an acorn that ended up floating but it cracked it open as you guys can see it's actually green in there and it's like a perfectly healthy nut but it may have had you know a mold problem or something I couldn't see that's why it floats but that being said guys depending on what you want to do if you're trying to plant for accuracy the only plant a couple Oaks then you're definitely only gonna want to plant the ones that sink at the bottom but if you're gonna be planning a large amount to spreading them out in the soil then it's really not gonna be a big deal you could spread all you wouldn't have to do this test but guys as you can see out of I'd say you know around a hundred acorns it looks like we only got around you know 15 acorns that's saying it isn't gonna be healthy red oak acorns so now you guys after doing this we're gonna move on to the next step and then it's going to be putting these acorns through stratification so guys unfortunately ended up losing the footage for the step of how to stratify your red oak acorns but it's real simple so I'll just fill you in so what you're gonna do after you do the water test or simply take your acorns and you need to do an indoor stratification with a plastic bag or outdoor stratification so all you're gonna do is take your acorn and put them in a bag of moist dirt and put it in the fridge for around five months until you until it's either springtime or you start seeing them root in the bag now in the next clip you'll see my Nike started rooting in the bag so I knew time to plant them but or you could do outdoor stratification so you just take your red oak acorn and put it and bury it into a little pot leave it outside and put it in a corner and let it just go through the winter period outside and the squirrels will dig these up in the springtime I mean they can smell them so they know where they're at so it is important to either put some mesh over and protect it or you know do indoor stratification but that's a real simple step but after you do that we're gonna move into the next clip which is after the stratification has taken place alright guys it is early spring and so the seeds have gone through enough time through stratification as we can see guys I had a couple sprouts poking through in our bag so we know that our red oaks are ready to be planted so now that is springtime guys and we have gone through stratification what I'm gonna do is very carefully open my bag up and pull out one of my red oak acorns and as you guys can see right there they're already had a nice roots already forming a sprout and the acorn is actually right here so what we're gonna do guys is actually go ahead and pop these because these have gone through stratification they are ready to be sprouted into the young red oak seedlings so what we're gonna do is just simply I got a nice potting soil mixed in with my native soil out here in Tennessee which is clay and then I added in some houmous which is some organic material that's been broken down and very carefully guys where this white root is very sensitive you know mostly water so you don't have to snap so I'm gonna go ahead and place this in and we can actually see right here it's got some white hair as well which is good those are the nutrient roots we're gonna put this in very carefully really really really try and be as careful as possible because we do not want all this time energy that has gone into growing these red oak ceilings to be for a waste and just for the root to snap but the nice little growth to snap off at the top so there we go guys that is what this one is gonna look like so I'm gonna go through all of my acorns and you're all man-whores in here should be nice and healthy and just because they aren't sprouting just like that one doesn't mean they aren't ready to be rooted here's another good example of one that's already rooted in the bag because honestly guys you do want to root a little bit while it's in the bag and what's gonna do stratification but once it is time to plant them you don't want them to be sprouting already like that one so this is actually perfect this is ideal what you're going for so as you get closer and closer to the springtime guys that's you need to be monitoring your seedlings especially if you're doing indoor stratification and make sure and see if they already are rooting or if they're sprouting or whatnot what's going on with them because guys like I said if you if it does start sprouting in the bag that can be a little hectic and it's very easy to damage them and that is not the best-case scenario so it is always good to keep a good eye on your seedlings and make sure and just because you know is springtime here finally and the weather's getting nice doesn't mean that the acorns haven't gone through enough time they already are I'm sorry the root and sprout of your bag so I got quite a few acorns in here guys so I'm just gonna go through it select the ones that look the healthiest was it got the roots coming just like this one right here the one's also sprouting and go ahead and start planning these guys so I'm gonna plant then finish planting the rest of these guys then I'm going to show you an updated clip and a couple weeks to show you how these seedlings are doing and that should wrap up this series I want to add in after transplanting our red oak acorns it's the positive you definitely want to make sure you water them especially the ones that have the little sprouts on them because they are gonna be going from you know being nice and moist into you know so that may not necessarily be as moist as the bag it was in after stratification so you definitely want to make sure you go ahead and give these guys a nice thorough watering just to ensure that they transplant correctly and properly and you know you don't want them to die off especially as far into the process so what I'm going to do is go ahead and overwater all these just to make sure they get truly soaked and the soil is really really wet just because I definitely want to lose my saplings but other than that guys I'm going to show you guys the next clip which is gonna be once these actually sprout out and we have our young red oak saplings so guys this is the final product and growing your red oak oak trees from acorn now these are over a month old I had to delete some older footage wasn't as good but you should start seeing some sprouts from the trees after around you know a week and a half to two weeks and then after that you can see some leaf starting to form so if you're not you know waited out a little bit longer but at the latest I pressed a two and a half weeks you definitely should see some sprouts and some leaf growth after that but these are these looking amazing as this is of course what you want to see this is a prime example of you know following all those steps correctly and having a beautiful young tree so now I'm going to nurture this and then eventually transplant it into a larger pod and you know keep it growing and eventually have a great large oak tree so I hope today's video is beneficial guys I wish all of you the best of luck I hope you can follow the tips and it really helped you out but other than that I'm gonna catch you in the next video

Channel: Green Thinking

Views: 62,897

Rating: 4.9367089 out of 5

Keywords: Oak tree, Nature, Environment

Id: JUToqS7mrHI

Length: 8min 21sec (501 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2019