 They are the stuff of song and poetry, of habitat for wildlife and recreation, of valuable building materials and warm fires. Oaks are common in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, but they are gradually disappearing from our landscape. When oaks are harvested or die of natural causes, commonly they are replaced by other tree species that are less valuable for wood products and wildlife. Our hardwood forests include a mixture of tree species, but young oaks have difficulty competing with other species. Because of this and the high market demand for oak, especially red oak, more oaks are being cut than are being grown. Right now it seems like the major problem is that we're over cutting our oak and we're not cutting it in such a way that we are regenerating it. We're not getting a lot of young oak back in the area, but we're going to be running under the high quality red oak and white oak trees that's going to be less of them in the area. In the next few minutes, we'll learn about the many uses for oaks. We'll learn how they regenerate and we'll see what management strategies can be used, especially near the time of harvest to maintain oaks in our woodlands. Oaks are owned primarily by private woodland owners like Jack Herald. In his family, he farms near Fort Atkinson, Iowa. 30 years ago, they bought a farm that included oak woodland. It was one of those timbers that really never had much done to it and we never did anything to it either in fact and so there was no logs taken out of it, no firewood, nothing. It was just left here. The woodland was left alone until this year when the Heralds, with the advice of their forester, decided to harvest and regenerate their oaks. Well, I guess the most important thing is this is my love for oak. To me, oak is a sign of strength and I just love that nice red oak and therefore we like to plant some red oak again and see them grow. There are many oak species in the Tri-State area. The red oak group characterized by pointed lobes on the leaves includes northern red, black, and northern pin oak. The white oak group with rounded lobes includes burr, white, chinkapin, and swamp white oak. Why encourage oaks to regenerate? Because compared to other trees, oaks have many important uses. Oaks provide habitat and food for a variety of wildlife. Acorns are a staple food for wild turkeys, deer, squirrels, and other animals. Oak woodlands frequently grow on steep slopes where they blanket the soil, thus preventing soil erosion and protecting water quality. Oaks beautify the landscape and beckon tourists. Oaks provide high-quality firewood. A quart of oak provides 70% more heat energy than a quart of cottonwood. And oaks are valuable for wood products from railroad ties to oak flooring, trim, wall paneling, doors, cabinets, and furniture. The lovely, strong, durable wood of oak is all around us. We work with the saw mills and with the landowners so that they understand and can appreciate the nice assets they have in a good oak wood lot or walnut. We work with the loggers to cut the best cuttings to use the best lumber that's available out of the saw heads. By this and our continual effort to educate and help people with lumber and timber sales and educational processes, seeing how nice the wood that we have is, we hope to make the continual growth of oak in the area just part of our heritage as it has been. Oaks reproduce naturally, sprouting from stumps and from acorns like this. Following a harvest, oak stumps may sprout, producing a new tree. Young, small-diameter trees sprout best. As oak trees grow older and larger, they lose their ability to sprout. While sprouts grow quickly because of their large root systems, usually there are not enough stump sprouts per acre to fully stock a new stand with oaks. Oaks also reproduce from acorns. In a good year, acorn production may range up to 250,000 per acre. That sounds like a lot, but red oaks produce good acorn crops in only one or two years out of five. Even then, insects and animals may destroy over half of this crop. In a poor seed year, nearly all of the acorns will be consumed by insects and wildlife. After acorns ripen, they are dispersed by gravity or by animals such as blue jays and squirrels. Best germination and survival of acorns occurs when they are buried in mineral soil under a light covering of leaves. If the acorns remain exposed, they dry out or are attacked by insects or are eaten by wildlife. Another reason why oaks are difficult to regenerate is because they need a lot of sunlight. In a natural woodland, the ground often is shaded by an overstory of tall trees or an understory of shorter trees, shrubs and ferns that tolerate shade. Acorns will sprout in this shade, but the resulting oak seedlings will die in two or three years without more sunlight. Harvesting selected trees scattered throughout the woodland will regenerate shade-tolerant species, but not oaks. This harvest method also may lead to the damaging result called high grading. This is when the largest and best quality trees are harvested, while poor quality trees and undesirable species are left standing. These undesirables then take up space and are the seed source for future generations. The most reliable method for ensuring oak regeneration is to harvest only when there are plenty of oak seedlings present in the stand. If oak seedlings are abundant, the mature trees can be clear-cut. If they're scarce, the reason often is too much shade. To encourage survival of more oak seedlings, it is necessary to reduce the shade, thus permitting more sunlight to reach the seedlings. If much of the shade is created by a dense understory, these small trees, shrubs and ferns, can be eliminated by herbicides, bulldozing or disking. If tall trees are creating the shade, they can be harvested by a group selection or shelter wood method or by clear-cutting after a good acorn crop. With group selection, you harvest clumps of trees to create openings. Over time, a few oaks should regenerate in each opening. Then additional groups can be harvested. A shelter wood harvest is a heavy thinning that leaves 50 to 70% of the canopy cover in place. Remaining trees provide seed, and openings allow intermittent sunlight to reach seedlings. It may take several years for oak seedlings to become established. Then remaining tall trees can be clear-cut to provide the full sunlight that oak seedlings need to outgrow their competitors. If you plan to harvest timber in a year when there is an abundance of acorns, you should clear-cut the stand after acorns drop. Undesirable small trees and shrubs should be killed before harvest, or they should be knocked down by logging equipment during harvest. Well, this year, the loggers had been around trying to purchase some trees from us, and so we contacted our forester for assistance, and so he came and marked some trees for us. Like many private forest landowners, the heralds didn't consider harvesting until they were approached by loggers. Then they contacted their forester for advice. He showed us that the majority of the trees in this timber were mature, and they probably wouldn't increase in value a whole lot anymore, so that, monetarily wise, it would be better off just coming in and clear-cutting and starting over again. When they harvested, they did it in a way that maximized oak regeneration. Oak, of course, needs full sunlight to get started, and if you really want to establish a new oak timber, the only way to do it is a clear-cut. Forester Janet Ott works with many woodland owners like the heralds. They work with landowners and talk them into doing either a small clear-cut or a shelter wood, some sort of system that we're just not going in and taking the big trees, that we can get in if it's an ideal area to clear out the understory and get oak started back that way, because it needs a lot of sunlight to really get started, and the systems that we use now with taking out a tree here and there just doesn't get the sunlight in. If group selection, shelter wood, or clear-cutting methods should fail to regenerate oaks, or if these harvest methods are not practical for your woodland, then you can always plant oak seedlings. When planting, keep these suggestions in mind. First, clear the planting site by group selection, shelter wood, or clear-cut methods, and control undesirable trees and shrubs. Order seedlings from a seed source known to thrive in your area. Use the largest seedlings you can find. Plant seedlings in moist soil right after the frost leaves the ground in the spring. Although expensive, plastic tubes placed over the oak seedlings have increased survival rates. Livestock can destroy tree seedlings and compact the soil preventing regeneration, so livestock should be fenced out of woodlands. You should always contact a forester for specific advice about how to regenerate oaks on your land. One thing we can do is give them, show them the different options that they have in managing their timber, going through step-by-step what it may look like. We ourselves, in my job, we drop a specific management plan detailing what should be done in their timber, whether it's tree planting or taking out the junk trees, the understory, and then harvest, whether it's now or in 10 years. Just give them options that they can look at and then decide themselves what they want to do with their timber. Managing your woodland to maintain a high percentage of oak to produce more valuable wood products makes sense, but it also makes sense to sustain an abundance and diversity of wildlife. Wildlife diversity is encouraged by creating a mix of stand ages, since some wildlife require young dense stands and other wildlife need older woodlands. Songbird diversity is encouraged by maintaining several layers of vegetation in a stand. A dense understory is a problem only when you are ready to regenerate a new stand of trees and want to provide more sunlight for oak seedlings to survive. To provide acorns for wildlife, maintain 40 to 60% of your woodland in oak stands at least 50 years old. During harvest, leave den trees to provide homes for animals. Leave dead trees standing to provide nesting and feeding sites for birds. Dozens of bird species depend on these snags. And seed logging roads and landings to clover and grass to reduce soil erosion and provide forage and open space for wildlife. Clearcuts provide necessary habitat for certain wildlife, such as browsing areas for deer. And clearcuts are sometimes necessary to regenerate oaks, but their appearance can be softened in several ways. Clearcuts can be small two-acre patches scattered throughout a woodland. You can break up straight woodland edges by creating irregular shaped edges or by thinning into the adjacent stand. And design the clearcut to blend into the topography. Oak woodlands are one of this area's greatest natural resources for wood, wildlife, watershed protection, and recreation. But they demand careful management to perpetuate desirable species and high quality trees. Before implementing any woodland management practice, especially timber harvesting, contact a forester to inspect your land and provide specific advice that will help you achieve your objectives. Oak is a major component in our stands. One thing is a high-valuable tree. It is also a major wildlife species as far as with the deer and the turkey and the squirrels. It's part of a mass crop. The deer will come out of the cornfields just to get the acorns. And so the oak is just perfect for deer and turkeys. It's aesthetically pleasing, especially in the fall colors with the reds and the oranges that it gets. Some people like to hunt. In our spare time, we like to go out in the timber and work. And that's our recreation. And just to have a diverse timber, we need to keep as many species as we can. Oak is one of those and it is a major species here.