Oak Losses

[lavacarancher]

Didn't want to steal a thread but there was discussion on cattle and wooded land and I wanted to ask if anyone else have lost Oak trees to the drought. I musta lost 300 Oaks. It's downright terrible to look out over the pastures and see so many dead Oak trees. Most are Post Oak, Blackjack and the like but so far, I haven't lost any Live Oaks. Wished it would have taken out the Cedars though.

 

[dun]

Didn't want to steal a thread but there was discussion on cattle and wooded land and I wanted to ask if anyone else have lost Oak trees to the drought. I musta lost 300 Oaks. It's downright terrible to look out over the pastures and see so many dead Oak trees. Most are Post Oak, Blackjack and the like but so far, I haven't lost any Live Oaks. Wished it would have taken out the Cedars though.

Just wait a few years, you'll lose more. Drought stress doesn;t alwasy kill them right away. As years go by you'll see trees start to leaf out in the spring then stop. Might as well cut them down then so that at least the wood is good for burning.

 

[Goodlife]

I'm sorry to hear the drought is killing your oaks. And if you dislike cedars, just wait. They will spread where the oaks die until new oaks get big enough to shade out the cedars.

 

[ddg1263]

Yep, i have been loosing large oak trees. It has been unbelievable. I never thought I would see strong oaks just fall over on a calm day, but I have seen it in my lifetime. This has been happening over the past three years because of drought conditions. I live in Alabama, and this past summer I had to clean off a fence row of mine with huge oaks that fell over on a calm day. The very same night Lawrence of Arabia came on tv, and I almost called a camel dealer to trade in my horse, but he said my horse was worthless nowadays! but seriously, the woods are thinning out because of the decrease of rain we are getting nowadays. I guess climate change is real because we have seen a true decrease in rainfall over the past three years.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Yep, i have been loosing large oak trees. It has been unbelievable. I never thought I would see strong oaks just fall over on a calm day, but I have seen it in my lifetime. This has been happening over the past three years because of drought conditions. I live in Alabama, and this past summer I had to clean off a fence row of mine with huge oaks that fell over on a calm day. The very same night Lawrence of Arabia came on tv, and I almost called a camel dealer to trade in my horse, but he said my horse was worthless nowadays! but seriously, the woods are thinning out because of the decrease of rain we are getting nowadays. I guess climate change is real because we have seen a true decrease in rainfall over the past three years.

We are in the 100 year cycle go back and look at the dust bowl history. One of the worst droughts in history here was 1911. I saw squirrels auctioning acorn's the other day and bidding on augers so they could bury them here.

 

[JSCATTLE]

I've lost several white oaks .. I split some for fire wood and I have several soaking in what's left of the pond so I can have it sawed for trailer boards

 

[TexasBred]

Lava...heard one of the experts saying on the radio the other day that many are not dead but just going dormant early. I have at least 10 big ones that look dead to me. I guess when the bark starts peeling off I'll know for sure. All post oaks and blackjacks....liveoaks seem to be doing ok. Have seen a lot of dead cedar and every other kind of small tree dead in this area.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Lava...heard one of the experts saying on the radio the other day that many are not dead but just going dormant early. I have at least 10 big ones that look dead to me. I guess when the bark starts peeling off I'll know for sure. All post oaks and blackjacks....liveoaks seem to be doing ok. Have seen a lot of dead cedar and every other kind of small tree dead in this area.

The dormant ones here have the limbs falling off along with the bark. Hired a high school kidto pick up limbs and he got 4 16' trailer loads.

 

[kenny thomas]

Did the oaks have a big acorn crop this year even though you had a drought? If so it probably was the trees last effort to reproduce another generation of trees. Most will almost kill themselves when under heavy stress just trying to reproduce.
My thoughts are that you will see many that do not leaf back out next spring, even many of those that look fine now. They have just used up their last reserve of strength.

 

[lavacarancher]

Lava...heard one of the experts saying on the radio the other day that many are not dead but just going dormant early. I have at least 10 big ones that look dead to me. I guess when the bark starts peeling off I'll know for sure. All post oaks and blackjacks....liveoaks seem to be doing ok. Have seen a lot of dead cedar and every other kind of small tree dead in this area.

Sure hope you're right, Tex. We had the scouts up to the ranch a couple of weeks ago and I took down about 10 Oaks around their campground just so the limbs wouldn't fall about the time one of them walked under the tree. Lucky for me the tractor I was using to push them with had a ROPS and roof. One limb about 8' long and 12" in dia fell on top of the tractor. Put a heII of a dent in the top. Would have killed me for sure. Better me than one of the kids, though.

We've had about four inches of rain in the past month. Things are sure greening up so maybe some of the trees that have started to turn brown will survive.

Maybe some of you are old enough to remember that we used split Post Oak for fence posts a few centuries ago. Not sayin' I'd go back to that but it would sure be a way to use all that dead Oak. Talk about a LOT of work. It would take Granddaddy a full day to cut the tree trunk to length using an old buck saw, then split it using wedges and a sledge hammer. He could make about thirty posts a day if I remember right. Then came the post hole diggin' using a drop auger. Man, those were the good old days (NOT).

 

[papavillars]

I also am losing a lot of oaks. Had a friend out that samples of the core and A&M said most were dying from Oak Wilt. They said Oaks that just fell over from the roots up probably had the disease. If they split from the top or just seemed to die but could not be pushed over relatively easily probably drought related. They advised not to split and sell the wood due to spreading the disease. i know several state parks allowed you to pick up wood and burn it instead of bringing your wood with you to keep down the spread of Oak Wilt.

 

[SteveTx]

I'm losing 100s of oaks this year here in the Texas hill country. Mostly live oaks and some red oaks that we call Spanish oak. I believe it's due to a combination of oak wilt and the drought. Many of the live oaks displayed veinal necrosis where the veins of the leaves turn brown, an important sign of oak wilt. And they die in clumps, oak wilt can spread through the roots. The Spanish oaks have gone from full green leaf to brown leaves and peeling bark in 6 to 8 weeks. Another sign of oak wilt, it takes longer to kill the live oaks. I'm pretty sure the stress of the drought isn't helping the trees cope with the wilt. Things are sure gonna look different around here in a year or 2. Heard a Parks and Wildlife biologist say "Save your hackberrys so the cows will have some shade." The only bright spot I see is at least I'll have a log smokehouse .