5yr Native Tree Challenge - Dingus's quercus muehlenbergii (Chinkapin Oak)

[LittleDingus]

This thread will track my efforts at quercus muehlenbergii over the next 5 years...

Quercus muehlenbergii - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I was already tracking some known chinkapin oaks for acorns to collect this season anyway so why not track their progress through this challenge! I have some personal reasons I wanted to start a tree from seed to hopefully be planted out in my next yard when we move in a year or three. Whatever I don't set aside for that project, I'll use for this one

This is not a mast year for chinkapin in my area. The trees aren't hard to find in the local preserves/parks, but the availability of acorns is sparse this season. There were some along a trail my wife and I frequent that I've been watching closely for maturity. But, knowing how few acorns I was finding this year and that the wildlife LOVE chinkapin acorns, I have also ordered some bare root fingerlings from the Missouri Department of Conservation. I think I ordered 10 from there...they aren't scheduled to be delivered until February if I remember right.

In the meantime, I did manage to collect a handful of acorns!



I was too late to get the ones I had been watching though I did manage to find 18 in all that were still on known chinkapin trees. In general, it's preferable to collect acorns direct off the tree. Once they hit the ground they become more susceptible to dehydrating and the myriad of insects and animals that want to eat them! Chinkapin, especially, you want direct off the tree as they can start to germinate as soon as they fall and will sometimes even germinate BEFORE they fall if it's wet enough!

I soaked the ones I gathered in water for 24 hours. They were all sinkers...which is a good sign! Then, I planted them all out into a communal 1 gallon grow bag filled with Napa 8822 mixed with some chunk coconut coif and 1/4 dose solid fertilizer sprinkled on top.



Chinkapin can germinate right away and even throw up a few leaves before the winter. That's unlike most other native to me oaks that form a peduncle and remain entirely underground through the first fall/winter before finally emerging in the spring. We'll see. I am a little worried the 8822 is not acidic enough for best germination...but I do have some backups hopefully arriving late winter...

My plan is either/both a shohin single tree or a shohin forest planting. Which will depend on how many plants I have in the spring after I set aside the few I want as future landscaping

 

[LittleDingus]

...and because that's the kind of guy I am, here's where we stand today:



Acorns were collected on 10/3/2020
Acorns were potted out on 10/4/2020
Obvious germination on 10/9/2020

I only dug up the one acorn

 

[LittleDingus]

I might have to get my real camera out to get some better pics...the phone camera was having a hard time focusing on what I wanted it too...but my acorns have started sprouting



Three so far! I couldn't get the 3rd one in focus at all

 

[LittleDingus]

I had also ordered a bundle of fingerlings from Missouri Department of Conservation. They sell to Missouri citizens dirt cheep. I got a bundle of 25 for $11 plus shipping.

They arrived yesterday!



Pretty good sized trees considering they were < $0.50 each!

Today I planted some of them. They still have their tap roots but do have some laterals as well. I trimmed ~1/3 off the bottom of the tap root on the ones I planted today. I cut back to a healthy set of laterals where I could. Here's a sample:



I potted some out in grow bags with a mixture of DE and chunky coconut coir. There was one that may work as a twin trunk one day that I planted all alone in a grow bag.



I planted 7 others in two different community grow bags...a 3 gallon bag with 3 and a 5 gallon bag with 4.



Then I ran out of DE I think that's all of these I'm going to plant for the purposes of this competition. The rest I might try some other fun things with including just planting a few in the ground.

My acorns haven't been doing much since my last post. Some of them dried out in some harsh, dry winds we had a few weeks ago. They'll likely sprout again now that we've been getting some rains and the temps are starting to climb. I have no idea how many trees I'll get out of those acorns.

I'm also considering buying a 2" caliper landscape tree to chop back.

...and, because I have more trees than I need and because @sorce is so generous and sent an extra pot even though I took advantage of his deep discount sale, I went ahead and potted a small one in a small pot



I don't know that it will even bud out in that tiny pot! But, I had a tiny pot with nothing planned for it and a small pile of trees that need to go into something soon or die anyway...so...why not?!?

 

[LittleDingus]

The little guy I chopped and put into a little pot has decided to grow!





2 buds have broken into definite shoots. There are 4 or 5 more buds I'm hoping break at some point. We'll see.

The rest of the seedlings are doing well also.




Those are all from the Missouri Dept of Conservation.

A half dozen or so of my collected acorns are doing well too.



I need to look deeper into the distinction between muehlenbergi and bicolor. The young leaves on the MDC seedlings all have the red leaf tips, green bases that I thought gave bicolor its name. The young leaves on mycollected acorns do not have that red/green appearance.

 

[cornfed]

I need to look deeper into the distinction between muehlenbergi and bicolor. The young leaves on the MDC seedlings all have the red leaf tips, green bases that I thought gave bicolor its name. The young leaves on mycollected acorns do not have that red/green appearance.

Love this thread! I justed posted a photo I took today of my young bicolor if you want to compare.

 

[LittleDingus]

Love this thread! I justed posted a photo I took today of my young bicolor if you want to compare.

The dwarf chinquapin (prinoides) thread in the deciduous sub-forum? Or did I miss it somewhere else?

I'm 98% certain my collected acorns are muehlenbegii. They could be prinoides, I guess. But I think the trees I harvested from were too big. Both are native here though.

Bicolor is also native to parts of Missouri...but not near here typically. Swamp oak, chinquapin and dwarf chinquapin are all very similar leaf shapes. Might need older trees and/or acorns to definitively sort it out.

I was surprised to see the "bicolor" leaves on my supposed muehlenbergii, however, since I thought that was a defining characteristic of quercus bicolor.

I'll be watching your thread though! I love oaks . I had a few other species I collected acorns from last fall, but the squirrels got to everything but the chinquapin which I managed to move into the garage before they found!

 

[LittleDingus]

I was wrong. According to this source

Swamp White Oak, Quercus bicolor Willd.

The "bicolor" name is from the white hairs that grow on the bottom of the leaf that give it a green top but white bottom.

I have a bicolor from the local nursery that I was stalking since last year before finally buying this spring. I don't recall it having white bottomed leaves though. It's just budding out again now. Last I looked no open leaves yet. So...we'll see.

But basically, oaks sleep around so none of them are likely to be very "pure".

 

[cornfed]

Ahhhh.... I wasn't thinking either. The leaves in your last photo looked a lot like the leaves on the prinoides that I confused myself.

I do have a swamp white oak as well, though. I'll check under the leaves today.

 

[LittleDingus]

Last November I collected what I believed at the time to be a chinquapin oak. At that time, the tree had only a few dried up leaves, but they looked right...and the bark looked right...so I grabbed it.

It was growing in a very rocky area. The surface was all soil...but down about 4 inches the tap root went through a crack in a large rock that I wasn't able to find the edges of to dig out. Pretty much all I got was about 4" of tap root and a few surface feeders in a heavy clay.

I brought it home anyway and threw it into a 5 gallon grow bag that I filled to about 6" deep and tucked it away in the garage for the rest of the winter. I was so sure it was going to die that I didn't even take any pictures of it at the time

In early spring, I moved it out into a spot behind the landscaping when I moved everything else out of the garage. Still a fat stick in a bag.

When I looked at it a couple of weeks ago...it was budding out like crazy! There were even 2 root suckers! I didn't realize they were there at first and broke one off poking around the soil to get a better look at things.

I held off on adding it to this thread to give it a little more time to leaf out so I could be positive it was a chinquapin. Now, there is no doubt!



So here it is: my final chinquapin entry!



Since it looks so vigorous, I went ahead and added a bit of wire to spread out the branches and keep them from growing straight up! I didn't spend a ton of time to wire nicely...at this stage, I just wanted to get some "out" instead of all "up" into the branches to help keep the tree open.



If I can get this one through the heat of summer and another winter, then I'll start to worry about branch structure. Right now it needs roots!

The good news is that if it does survive, It should be very nearly ready to go into a bonsai pot as shallow as short as the tab root was at collection time

 

[LittleDingus]

We've had some decent rains lately so I took the opportunity to work the soil on the tree I collected last fall.

First, I took the wire off. The branches are holding their shape well now



A few small branches dried up...as did the terminal bud on the leader. But the tree otherwise looks like it's managing the heat on what little roots it has.

The roots from collection are mostly in a clay soil. The rains we've had recently have softened the clay somewhat. I took a pair of skewers and poked them into the soil all over to open up the clay. By doing this, the clay is forming little balls encrusted with the DE.



I was able to remove some of the clay entire this way. My hope, however, is that the remaining clay is "opening up" by mixing with the DE. My hope is that over time the clay opens up enough that it comes off the roots easier at the next repot and there is less root damage during the repot. We'll see...

The sucker is still looking healthy



This sucker will not be kept...but for now, it entertains me

 

[LittleDingus]

I went out of town about a month ago and this guys has been going down hill ever since



It was nice and green when I left...but it was hot and didn't get watered well enough while I was out of town. It's likely dead and just doesn't know it yet. At least I'd bet money that the trunk is dead I'll try and keep it sheltered through the winter, but, if it is alive, it's been set so far back there's no hope for anything even vaguely tree shaped in the time frame of this competition

My "from acorn" guys are all still doing well:



but, I've been scouting for more acorns the past week or two. They are hard to find at a height I can pluck them off the tree but if I can find a dozen or so, I'm going to try a few crazy things with these

Most of my department of conservation trees also leafed out and are doing well.



At the end of the day, I still have ~20 or so healthy chinquapin. Even so, my hopes were on the collected one...and now that it is struggling, I'm going to yank all my chinquapin out of this challenge. I still love the species and I have lots of plans for them for the next decade or two...but nothing that I'll continue to track here.

Consider this thread closed and this entry withdrawn...

 

[Shogun610]

Gah I would love to college a Chinkapin Oam, I’m actually going to see an oak today 500 year old one 20 minutes from me , called the sacred oak