What’s in Your Backyard? There’s a Tree in There!

Acorns-food for the forest.

Part 1…of 2 or 3

Hundreds, thousands call it a flood of acorns. It is estimated by “experts” that a 50 or more-year-old oak tree may produce ten thousand acorns in a “mast” year. Mast is the fruit of deciduous trees and shrubs.

Call it the fruit of the forest…there is a hard mast-the acorns and beechnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts-nuts with hard shells. Then there is the soft mast, the blueberries, raspberries, fruit from shrubs of the forest. and either way mast is the fruit of the forest. Every 2-5 years there arrives a bumper mast crop. This is called the “mast year.”

Let’s focus on the oaks. They produce acorns…and acorns are food for many animals.

During the season the oaks produce a bumper yield there are many more than animals and insects can eat, this guarantees some acorns will survive to take root and produce young oak trees. In regular years the seed is consumed as food by the creatures of the forest. Fewer sprout to become the next generation of oaks. A “mast year” overwhelms the nut eaters, leaving more acorns to develop into oak trees.

These acorns are from Burr Oak trees.

They begin to fall in August. They pound roofs like a localized hailstorm. But they don’t melt. They accumulate beneath the tree. Imagine 10,00o under a tree. Deer eat them. Squirrels carry them around, bury them and eat them too. Insect larva burrow their way in leaving a tiny hole which bears witness of another life fed. If they fall on the street, they are ground to oak flower. They float. They have a tough outer shell with a nut inside.

A tree is in the nut. A potentially large, strong, long living tree. But it takes 20 years before an oak tree has grown enough to produce acorns, and peak production does not begin until the tree is over 50 years old! Being a grandpa, I like the fact that oaks bear fruit in old age!

It is thought that there are over 300 species of oak tree in the world. There are 55 species of oaks living on the North American Continent. There should be an oak near you, unless you live on a prairie-or the Arctic!

Just one more detail for part one…Biologists do not know why oak trees produce an excess of acorns every two-five years. Mast years follow a cycle. It is a certainty. On years when there are few acorns, remind yourself-the big crop is coming.

Now for your assignment-find an oak tree…so go outside (it’s healthy)

1.      Search for an oak tree

2.      Attempt to find an acorn

3.      If you do, pick one up

a.      What is its color?

b.      Measure it height and width.

c.      Draw it, color it, label things you see.

d.      Smell it.

e.      Take a small saw and cut it open…look at the inside, how thick is the shell?

f.       See if you can find where the little oak tree is…(now put the pieces back outside, something will eat it.)

g.      If you take two…plant one in a pot…this is your experiment in oak tree growing.

Last…be looking for part 2!

Enjoy your time with the Oak trees!

What does the cap on the acorn do?