i've got enormous amounts of these right outside here. email me and we can figure something out. there are also other interesting tree seeds here in the northern california mountains. i've been researching a bit, to figure out when and how to harvest different tree seeds. the tough part can be a definite identification, i am pretty good at getting close, but still researching and learning the specific varieties.

How about grow incredibly slow. Have extremely dense wood that does dull anything sharp that comes into contact with it (sometimes trees have to be cleared to make room for paths/garden etc). Have no fall color. Pop up everywhere around here. It along with ulmus alata and white and green ash have a ridiculous germination rate around my house. Even the small branches are so firm that a slight brush against my body feels like nails scraping my skin. Very. Ugly. Leaves. Very short for a long time. I would rather have just about any other tree that is growing on my property that the blackjack oak. Heck, even my much disliked ulmus alata displayed a fantastic fall show last year while the blackjack oak either turned brown and fell or fell while turning brown. Does grow where no oak should be able to grow and does provide acorns for the wildlife as well as other normal tree stuff birds love. And by the way I have not planted any lollipop trees on my property. I do have one specimen blackjack oak that is about 30 feet tall with very nice form in the open that will never see a chainsaw if that makes you feel any better.

I'm not sure this article answers the question, but it has a lot of information about masting in California oaks. Here is a link that might be useful: Article on acorn production in California oaks

This is an old post, but if you still want to know about acorns here is the story Oaks in California are a masting species, this means that they produce large amounts of seeds in some years, and few to zero seed in other years. Many species mast, and the reasons for masting are not well understood. Some scientists believe that fruiting is caused by an environmental trigger related to temperature or water. One study showed that masting in another species of plant was related to seed predation by insects. In years of low production of seeds, seed predator populations decrease, and in high production years, the seeds get a chance to germinate because there are more seeds than pests. Generally with valley oaks, the amount of seed production will be pretty much the same throughout the entire species range, with a few exceptional trees producing acorns. But luckily for animals, often other species of oak such as coast live oak will produce its acorn crop in valley oaks bad years.