quercus suber reaction to various levels of pruning

[LittleDingus]

10 days ago I was getting a little stir crazy so I did some work on some q suber I have too many of. I have several grow bags with 4 or 5 2-year saplings each. I picked one with 4 trees and did some experimenting

3 of those trees I made a group planting out of. The forth one I chopped.

I decided it was safe to do the work now because I was expecting the trees to begin a fall flush of growth. And, in fact, the trees in the bag sitting right next to the one I chose is currently showing new growth.



These buds were not readily apparent 10 days ago. These trees were not touched. This is the control

All 4 trees from the bag I worked on had their tap roots cut back and lost ~50% of root mass but were not bare rooted. I was as careful with the remaining roots as I could possibly be and kept a good portion of the soil around them.

One of these trees wasn't used in the planting I made. That one I cut back severely just to see what would happen. It is now budding out with new growth as well.



The remaining 3 were used in a group planting. They were all pruned to about the same level. I removed about 60% of the foliage from each of these. I pruned them back expecting them to bud out as I was expecting a fall flush of new foliage. But so far...nadda.



The trees don't appear to be in decline. But there is no noticeable growth either. On any of 3 trees.

To summarize: I have a dozen or so live oak trees that have not been touched for many months that are showing a fall flush of foliage. I have a single live oak tree that had 50% of it's root structure chopped and 100% of it's foliage chopped that is showing a flush of foliage. And I have 3 live oaks that have had a 50% root reduction and a 60% foliage prune that are sitting idly enjoying the refreshing rains we've been getting. All trees are the same age from the same batch of acorns and have grown up on the same section of my deck and are all still within 3' of one another with the only special treatment being that the 4 that had work done are in a shadier spot.

Why no growth on the pruned trees yet? It appears the trees were primed for their fall flush of growth because the untouched trees are growing as expected. It does not appear that cutting off buds that were about to grow pushed the schedule back significantly because the tree that was viciously loped isn't very far behind the ones that weren't touched.

I'm still hoping they'll do something soon. I'm not worried they will die, but I was hoping for a round of growth like the others. Thoughts?

 

[BrianBay9]

I'm thinking 10 days is not a lot of time, particularly for fall pruning in your climate. I have all of September, October, and at least part of November for a Q suber to do something yet this fall. You probably have part of September? When is your first freeze? Still I bet you'll get buds. What do you do with this tree for winter?

 

[John P.]

I have quite a few little ones and one really nice bigger one. The bigger one is a growth machine ... the little ones all seem to have their own individual clocks.

I’m sure yours are just fine.

 

[LittleDingus]

I'm thinking 10 days is not a lot of time, particularly for fall pruning in your climate. I have all of September, October, and at least part of November for a Q suber to do something yet this fall. You probably have part of September? When is your first freeze? Still I bet you'll get buds. What do you do with this tree for winter?

Average first frost here is October 28th. We just had an unusual couple days of "cold" where it got down into the mid 50Fs at night and day temps in upper 60Fs. But generally we'll get low 80Fs for most of September with night temps in 60Fs. Most of the next week is predicted to be in the low to mid 80Fs.

Believe it or not, I left one little guy out all winter because I got tired of bringing things in and thought I could afford to lose that one...and it lived! I don't count on that at all for these guys...but I will probably leave that same one out all winter again. Eventually it's luck will run out!

Otherwise, last winter half were in my basement...I really should stop calling it that on this forum! My "basement" is a 12' deep walk out basement with a wall of floor to ceiling window that face south east. This is the room half of them spent the winter in.



The rest wintered in the garage under lights. Basement averaged mid 60Fs. Garage averaged low 50Fs but did dip below freezing for a few days during the coldest part of winter.

I'll probably do roughly the same this year. Half in the basement and half in the garage.

Next year I'll have to figure out what to do with all the "extra" trees! I really only wanted 2-3, but the smallest package of acorns I could find at the time was 25. I planted them all and 23 sprouted! A few did die off after some root pruning, but I still have like 20ish left! I only did this work to begin with because I could afford to lose a few trees

And, for the record, I'm not at all worried about the ones that aren't budding out yet. I just found it curious that a full trunk chop created new buds in a matter of days and yet a partial prune stalled out the plant. I found the reaction interesting and a good demonstration for those more tentative and not wanting to make severe chops. A little bit is, perhaps, not good enough

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Your basement is more a solarium than anything else. Or an "Orangerie" to use the old British term for a cool, above freezing glass walled building. Used for citrus in the winter. Greenhouses have glass roofs, solariums and sun rooms have solid roofs and glass walls.

 

[LittleDingus]

Your basement is more a solarium than anything else. Or an "Orangerie" to use the old British term for a cool, above freezing glass walled building. Used for citrus in the winter. Greenhouses have glass roofs, solariums and sun rooms have solid roofs and glass walls.

I should start referring to that room as a solarium. It's also my wife's sewing room and is carpeted. I think of solariums being intended for plants whereas this is a "normal" room service double duty in my mind.

Our previous house did have a solarium. It was a nice sized 8' x 12' room in the center of the house. All 4 walls were large windows into various rooms of the house. The ceiling was high and almost all skylight facing east. We had a large iguana that owned the floor level. I had shelves above all the windows where I mostly grew orchids. It was a battle! Iguanas love to climb and have a remarkable skill at it!! And they're vegetarian

The basement "solarium" in this house has no heating of it's own. We keep our house pretty cool and there aren't many vents int he basement. If I keep the door to that room open, it will get pretty cool. If I close the door, that room can heat up to >90F during the day even in the winter! It used to get a lot hotter but we replaced the contractor grade windows throughout the house with high efficiency windows. That was an expense! The basement has 10 windows that size. The first floor has 6 and a large sliding glass door roughly the same size. All face south east! We used to have a measurable 15 degree temperature difference between the back and front of the house during a hot summer day! Big expense, but much better now!