Happy Friday!
Does anyone have any experience with the Monterey Oak?
Would love to try some but they are pricey compared to other oak varieties.
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I think I would first consider a native oak to your area.
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I have a few in S. Texas. They thrive. We have oak wilt which kills live oaks but the Monterrey oaks are immune to it. They have grown through 100Ā° Summers and 10Ā° Winters.
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Up and down the east coast many states are advancing Sawtooth Oak {Quercus acutissima} as an excellent wildlife oak. Unlike most oaks they set large crops of acorns at a very young age. And somewhat like the Burr Oak they are large and preferred to eat by animals. It also crops in September.
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Oaks produce most of their āproductivityā from the vast quantities of caterpillars that live on them, not the acorns they produce
Long term that is not a great tree (itās from Asia) for the ecosystem compared to something super fast growing and also precocious like a Compton oak
Compton oak in general is really hard to beat for the SE, especially if people in the US would start pollarding their giant sprawling oaks like they do in Europe
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I have lots of mature timber here on my place (30 acres) mostly oak trees of various kinds.
No Monterey ā¦ dont think they grow here.
I do haveā¦
White oak
Post Oak
Chestnut oakā¦ (many locals call Mountain oak) huge acorns
Red oaks
Black oaks
Squirrel, turkey, deer eat all of those but seem to prefer White, Red and Chestnut.
Probably around 80% of the trees in my woodsā¦ are oak. The rest include Hickory (shag, mocker, red, pig), poplar, maple, ash, pine, sourwood, dogwood, redbud, etcā¦
When we first built our homeā¦ I dug up 2 sugar maples out of my woodsā¦ and planted them in our front yard. These are 20+ years now.
TNHunter
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It has not proven very invasive here. And most oaks take a very long time to produce heavy masts. Also the fact it drops parts of itās mast in September makes it unmatched in delivering acorns to hunting areas. Improving wild life nutrition and improving hunting opportunities.
Letās face it. It is no different then many of the funky fruits we establish here. It just has a different purpose. But a purpose none the less.
I feel the same way about Drake Elm. It is outstanding ornamental that I note is a huge use nesting tree for many species. If it helps re-establish native bird populations it has a place here. We have seen our hummingbird population expand 5 fold here. And Drake Elm is their choice of nesting sites every year.
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Yes I love all of our various Oaks. Swamp White Oak, Live Oak and Post Oak are the most numerous here. But there are Red and Scrub Oaks as well. Plus the poor unloved Blackjack oaks that are scraggly and short lived.
Whose sole purpose seems to be growing 6-12 large severely tannin choked acorns to deer head heightā¦lol
Your point is well taken (though hunting is barely starting in September)
Compton oaks are hybrids that produce large crops early, theyāre also native and become beautiful trees like a live oak, whatās not to love?
They are later dropping but September is very warm down there and animals would rather eat sugar and let it turn to fat in their bodies than eat fat when itās warm, I suspect ultra productive persimmons that dropped at the same time would actually be more popular
But trust me, especially in yards I understand non native not invasive plants can provide a boon for wildlife
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Sawtooth is not a long lived oak and non-native. It is considered invasive in some areas of the US.
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Humans being impatient are so often the reason for poorer landscaping choices, truly
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Good hybrid Oaks are hard to find here. Then often pricey when found. There is a rare Kentucky Oak said to have very low tannin levels. But finding it is like trying to catch ether with a tea strainerā¦lol
With Sawtooth Oak it is sold as a companion to native oaks. Attracting wildlife to your tract earlier.
Monterrey oak sounds very interesting, Iāll have to keep it in mind for trying up here. More diversity in white oaks is always a good thing, and it sounds like this one is a really great one.
I have two sawtooth oaks, they occasionally lose the crop top late frosts but otherwise produce huge amounts of large acorns that the squirrels, jays, and deer seen to like a lot. The local turkey flock hasnāt found them yet but Iām hoping they do eventually because I love seeing the turkeys closer to the house. Spanish moss does well on it for whatever reason, which the songbirds really appreciate. Iād wager a decent number of bugs feed on them as well, but Iāve never looked carefully. Overall I think theyāre a welcome addition to yard, food plot, and field margin type ecosystems, probably helping fill the niche American Chestnut used to.
To my mind itās also cool that sawtooth oak isnāt in either the red or white oak group, so itās broadening the generic diversity of oaks in the US.
Iāve got two small Compton oaks, everything Iāve read about them is very exciting. I love live oaks but these sound more or less like an absolute improvement in almost every way unless youāre growing them by the sea where pure live oak is a better idea.
Iāve yet to get any, but Iāve long considered getting some dwarf oaks for wildlife benefit. Dwarf chestnut oak, dwarf live oak, runner oak, Chapman oak, maybe some of the oodles of scruby oaks from out West and across the border, they all have the advantage of fitting into smaller spots, maturing earlier, and generally form thickets. Most seem to be highly productive from what Iāve read.
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This one seems like an absolute no brainer for sandy soils, I hope itās a good as it sounds anyway, had my eye on it for a while
Good to hear about sawtooth oak
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My sawtooth oaks dropped acorns for the first time this year. I was so excited.
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The Monterrey produces toxic acorns. Is this also true of the other oaks under discussion here?
Bur oaks planted here have all begin producing good crops of acorns by 8-10 years of age, and have continued to do so, annually, for the intervening 20+ years.
@dannytoro1 - I have the ortet of a very low-tannin KY-grown Bur oak, āMid-MO #1ā, as well as others, like āSweet Idahoā, āF2 Ootiā, and grafts of āMcDanielā Bur English hybrid. āMid-MO#1ā acorns this year are exceedingly low in tannins, as has been the case in years pastā¦Iāve eaten quite a few, while gathering this year; they are not without just a hint of astringency, but donāt elicit immediate bitter spitting, like many others.
@Richard - acorns of Monterrey oak are NOT poisonous; like most all oaks, they contain tannins/gallotannins, which would need to be leached out prior to human consumption. This is pretty much the case for all American oak species. Deer and goats have proline-rich salivary proteins which inactivate these tannins, so they can eat virtually unlimited quantities of acorns with impunity, whereas consumption of significant quantities by other livestock may cause gastrointestinal and renal damage.
@Phlogopite - I have an open-pollenated Compton oak seedling, planted in 1996, which has never produced an acorn, while all its contemporary oak seedlings planted at that time were bearing well within 10 years.
Regarding Sawtooth oaks, there have been some concerning reports of them becoming āinvasiveā in some areas of the Southeastern US. Sawtooth logs do make good substrate for Shiitake mushroom production
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Have you tried grafting them or are they seedlings? Our Swamp White Oak produces good eating acorns with modest leeching. But alas they are small nuts. I wanted to add Sawtooth Oak. But any very low tannin large nut would be appreciated.