I’ve seen 40 acre parcels in central WI where 90% of the red and black oaks are dead from oak wilt.
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Send in the loggers?
My brothers just had about that much land logged west of Black River Falls. I guess i never heard them mention oak wilt. I know the loggers were leaving a few trees to reseed the land but everything else was taken out (clear cut). I haven’t been up there in a few years.
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You won’t have to check yours over very carefully to find it if you get it. The whole tree dies rather suddenly, beginning with the tiptop branches all suddenly wilting, then the whole tree dying in a few weeks. Plant your mil a white oak, as they don’t get wilt.
Mixed forest is still better. Next decade it might be “white oak bud worms” or something killing trees.
We had 3 large white oaks die last year. For everything growing, there is a pest… or ten…
Over on the NNGA Facebook group someone suggested that Juglans regia x nigra are generally sterile. But if so, the darn trouble there is also finding a scion, and whether or not they’d be Z5 hardy.
Burr x swamp white oaks are fairly fast growing. Bebb’s oak I think is the name. Oikos sells them.
Lots of cities are planting more and more hackberry. Such a bummer of a tree. No flowers, no fall color, and doesn’t grow really big. The University of Iowa grounds folks are super fond of them, and have planted hackberry extensively.
Oh…40 feet plus…and big as a 55 gallon barrel isn’t big? That’s what hackberry can do.
The fruits are not good…birds eat them as a last resort. (After all the feeders are snowed over or the squirrels ate them dry.)
I have a Burr oak. Loaded with acorns again. Fast growing, but the thing loves to hold its leaves all winter. Finally late spring and it sheds them and leafs out. I guess you don’t have to rake in the fall.
There are problems with making hybrids in the first place, but many of them are productive. I saw 2 or 3 R X N hybrids in Gerald Gardner’s planting in 2005 that had heavy crops of nuts. Unfortunately, they were not very good for eating.