Love the Farm Boy.
Us old(er) farts can’t help sharing knowledge that sometimes only we find interesting. And we often repeat it!
So anyway, here’s something I read about in our county’s conservation magazine, which explains my own experience on my vast country estate:
The article was about Illinois’ vastly diminished oak savannas, and what land owners can do to restore the oaks.
All of the acorn and nut bearing trees have a survival relationship with tree rats. The mast is the tree rat’s food source (besides what I put out for the birds), and in return, the tree rats bury them in the ground planning on sniffing them out and digging them up during the winter. They miss a lot of what they bury, which ensures the next generation of trees.
So here’s the “interesting” part, assuming you’re still with me...
We always wonder why the tree rats bury their acorns and nuts out in the middle of the yard, or in our gardens instead of in the brush or woods where we might actually want a tree. Well, it’s because of the field mice and meadow voles. They spend all winter digging up the squirrel’s winter food, but because of hawks and owls, they only do it in the brush, high weeds, or woods. So the squirrels plant out in the open where the mice are afraid to go. So if you want the tree rats to help re-populate your oaks, hickories, and walnuts, you brush hog or mow off where you want the nuts planted.
I stopped shooting at them with the BB gun, and just transplant the seedlings out to the wooded corners of my palatial grounds.
Here’s a little walnut and a hickory that came up in one of my raised beds. They are the same age, but hickories spend their first year or two sinking a deep tap root that makes them a bear to dig up without killing them.
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