The Sacramento Bee ran an article this week about the lack of young oaks in the local foothills. The article included several comments from UCCE natural resources specialist Doug McCreary and a mention of statewide research on oak regeneration.
Sacramento Bee writer Mary Lynne Vellinga reported that the overwhelming majority of oak seedlings never reach the sapling stage, much less become mature oak trees.
"The limitation does not seem to be the number of acorns, or the number of plants getting to be seedlings a couple of inches tall," McCreary is quoted. "The bottleneck seems to be going from seedlings to saplings, or teenage size."
McCreary provided several possible reasons:
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Non-native grasses introduced by cattle-grazing during the Gold Rush compete for water.
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Cattle, deer and sheep eat the young seedlings.
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Climate change.
The article said that McCreary is part of a team of researchers growing oak seedings at five sites around the state, including the Sierra Foothill Research & Extension Center in Yuba County. The research oaks are being protected in a variety of ways – from plastic shelters to shield them from grazers to weeding out of nearby grasses – to determine what works best.
