I've seen acorns on oaks 5-6 years old. It doesn't happen often, but it is known. More generally, they start producing around 10-20 years old if in full sun.

The 50-year thing so often claimed in books is for oaks growing in dense forest conditions with heavy side shade from other competing trees.

Resin

i planted 6 to 8 foot [what 2 meters or so] ... bare root oaks in 4/2000 .... they were about 1 inch caliper ...as i recall ... but i dont know how old they were ...

all 35 of them have produced acorns .... most within 5 years ...

most are now 20 to 30 feet tall ... and at least 6 inch caliper ... 2 retards .. lol ...

i hope you can glean what info you want from this ...

pshaw on the suggestion that it takes 50 years for oaks to acorn ... i like resin's suggestion ... in that regard

ken

I've seen Live Oaks produce acorns at a young age. I saw some in a parking lot that were only planted about 7 years ago already loaded with acorns.

Thanks. Ken and Resin...If I'd have known I was going to get answers from you two, I would have just posted in the Conifer forum!!!

They are all in full sun. They range from 6 feet tall to 15 feet. He got them all from the county extension office, so they were small and young when planted.

What you both said DOES make sense though...Thanks.

My neighbor will be disappointed to learn that. We thought he had something special...

Eliot

I have an upright English oak I purchased from a nursery here that was container grown in a 5gal bucket. It was about 6' (2m) or so. It had acorns on it when I planted it three years ago. I remember specifically because my son wanted to see what they looked like inside. I promptly pulled my knife out and sliced my finger open. 20 minutes later I was getting stitches.

It hasn't produced acorns since, but when last I looked at it about a month ago it looked like this might be the year.

conifers are trees ....

but not all trees are conifers ....

so we do both ...

ken

PS: ergo.. it follows.. oaks are NOT conifers... lol

My then 8' high Burr Oak, planted in '02 - now - approx. 20' high, has been producing acorns for the past 2 years.

My Shumard oak trees were planted almost 25 years ago, at the size of 4 inch trunks.

They began producing acorns 10 - 12 years ago, and in the last 5 years have produced so many acorns I have hated the mess and work it takes to clean them up off sidewalks, and the work it takes to keep digging up the sprouted ones that I did not get picked if they had become hidden under a holly bush or other full type landscape item.

Also in the spring over those years, tons of acorns I missed sprout in the yard and keep growing faster and taller than the grass grows before it would normally need to be mowed.

My mature Scarlet oak that was only one foot tall when I planted it 20 years ago, only began producing such a noticable crop of acorns about 2 years ago. This tree is growing in the backyard and as of yet I've not noticed it's acorns causing so much problems.

I have a 10 year old Shumard oak tree that I first dug up and planted on the opposite end of my backyard when it was just a sprout that had grown from one of the acorns dropped from one of my now mature Shumard oaks.

It has been dropping a few acorns each year since it was only 7 years old, and only in the last two years have I noticed it's acorn production getting heavy enough to begin causing problems in my landscape beds. I know the neighbor certainly will not like it once the tree grows large enough and begins producing enough acorns to cause a bad litter problem on their driveway, which is only about 15 feet away from that tree's trunk. I have been pruning it up alot to prevent it's branches from growing too near their house, so hopefully it's acorn yield will take another decade or so before that problem arises.

My 2 Chestnut oaks 6-7 years old started having acons last year, my 10 year old pin oak had a few this year. A 16 year old N. red oak was loaded this fall. It's on land I once owned, but I can still admire the tree. Sawtooth oak seeds early but doesn't live long for n oak.

I began planting bur oaks & hybrids, about 20 years ago - and a few red oaks along the way - and have continued to plant a few oaks along with my other nut trees - most of the bur & bur-hybrids begin producing acorns around 6-8 yrs of age. Nearly 20 years out, the northern reds have yet to produce a crop.

Heavy acorn crop here this year - one of the older bur oaks in my planting had limbs bent down with the weight of the many acorns it produced; I suspect that if I raked them up, I could fill at least 3-4 5-gallon buckets with acorns.

Here is my 4 year old Texas Live Oak in SW Missouri. Already has acorns.

{{gwi:337825}}

Oaks from OIKOS are often selections for early acorn production, so burr & swamp white oak from them started producing after only a couple yrs here. Late frost nixed most of them this season.

The pin oaks commonly planted, tho, do seem to take a very long time to produce.

My Compton's oaks are supposed to bear by age 8. They are 3 years in my yard, if I remember correctly. One may be 4 yrs in my yard. I bought 3 of them. The Compton's oak is Q. VirginianaX Q. Lyrata hybrids. I got those from Mossy oak natives nursery. They also have early "fruiting" oaks.

Hello,

4 weeks ago I planted several 2-foot tall Southern Live Oak (Quercus Virginiana) in full sun in my yard. On one of them, I found the attached "bud" right next to one of the leaves. Anyone know what it is? Being an "abnormality" I pricked it off the small young oak. I hope that I am not "hurting" the little one by doing so.

start your own thread and you will probably get more answers to your question. I am also curious. Can you post a pic of your oaks leaves please?

Thank you. I did so. However, I have not posted a photo of the leaf. I will do so as soon as I get a chance.

Yeah, definitely not a Live oak acorn.

No way that it takes anywhere near 20 or 30 years for bur oak to start producing acorns,I have a young bur oak that was bought at the nursery last year,was planted soon after and now has 4 huge acorns right at the top of the crown! The tree is around 8 ft.tall and maybe 2 inches thick at base.

I've had other bur oaks that I've planted in the past start producing acorns in about 5 years,some seem to produce earlier than others,guess maybe is the specific genetics for that tree...seen a few not produce until 10 to 15 years.

In my wild woods, I see small Bur Oaks, 6 ft. tall and 3/4" dia. with acorns. Not a lot, maybe a half dozen of so. The red oaks don't but I have noticed that even the mature reds and possibly pin oaks, don't produce acorns every year. Some every 3 to 4 years.

Of coarse anything around here is subject to frost and if that occurs at a certain stage of blooms, it can put a stop to the acorns for that year.

Yeah I don't know where the notion comes from that it takes several generations to produce ? I've planted southern live oaks that made acorns in 3 years.

I have several acorns on my Chestnut oaks, I have 2 Chestnut oak trees, they have put out acorns after just about 3 years in ground, maybe even 2 years, they grow hella fast, and NOW I am getting acorns on my Swamp White oaks, they may be about 7-8 years in ground from whips about 2 years old, SO Swamp white oaks will give you acorns in POSSIBLY about 8 years from planting til fruiting. and I also am getting small acorns from my Pin oaks and my Nutall's oaks and 1 Shumard oak tree. I am still waiting to see my Compton;s oak trees acorns, I do KNOW they will be rather big acorns, at least compared to most of the acorns from the PIn oaks, Nuttall's oaks and Shumard oaks, it seems like most white oak acorns are larger than the white oak acorns.

Anyway, I hope that the original poster could come here and respond to all of these answers, it would help to see if my reply and all of these other replies have helped to answer the OP's question.