Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Growing an oak tree from a fallen acorn?

I found a few acorns on the ground by an oak tree earlier in the month of January. I want to know if I can use these to grow my own trees. If I can, how should I go about doing it?

Note: It had already reached freezing temperatures in my area at the time I collected the acorns, but I have brought them inside...

4 Answers

Relevance
  • ?
    Lv 7
    8 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Plant each acorn ina separate pot. I you can get your hands on 3/4- 1 gallon (6") nursery pots that would be ideal. any pot must have good drainage. Your acorn will develop a better root system in that size pot rather than starting it in a larger pot. Fill each pot with plain - not fertilized all purpose potting soil to within 1" of the top. You will plant each acorn point side up. Your planting depth should be 3x the length of the acorn ie if the acorn is 1/2" long plant it 1 1/2" deep. Water well. Keep the soil moist but not soggy. If it is still very cold in your region you can grow them indoors until spring. You do not need to worry about light until they sprout. Once the sprouts appear move them to a very bright (west or south) window. After the last frost move your seedlings outside. They need to "harden off" so put them where they get only morning light. After 2 weeks move them to full sun - 6-8 hours each day. Monitor the moisture. You do not want the soil to dry out completely nor do you want it to be soggy - just moist. DO NOT fertilize. You want to encourage root development. Fertilizing will push foliage and sacrifice root development. By July you should have a sufficient root system to pot your seedlings up to a 2 gallon pot. When you transplant make sure not to plant it any deeper than it already is. No soil on the trunk. Plan on keeping your saplings in a pot for 3 years. Next spring bump it up to a 3 gallon pot - 5 gallon the following spring then plant the spring after that. You can start giving it diluted high nitrogen fertilizer next spring. Use water soluble at 1/2 the recommended rate. Apply early spring, early summer and mid summer. No fertilizer late summer or fall.

    When your young trees are ready to plant ask again and I will give you directions on the correct way to plant young trees.

    Good luck

    Source(s): Master Gardener Landscape Contractor
  • Erika
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    Its handiest a guess however quite often generally when strolling the woods u see acorns sprouting which have just falling and lie there or an extra good solution to find out could be to shallow plant some and depart some above ground experimenting mostly in life will provide u all the solutions u need i am hoping my feedback help

  • 8 years ago

    Keeping and planting acorns is not as easy as it might sound. Sticking it in a pot is not the way. You don't say what kind of oak the acorn came from, so here's some info on planting acorns from various kinds.

    http://forestry.about.com/od/treeplanting/p/oak_ac...

  • thomas
    Lv 7
    8 years ago

    Put them in some rather large pots with some fertalizer & water them. Nature takes care of the rest.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.