Afield: Give a red oak a winter break: Liberate it

BRAINERD — Famed conservationist Aldo Leopold once wrote, "November is, for many reasons, the month of the axe. It is warm enough to grind an axe without freezing, but cold enough to fell a tree in comfort. The leaves are off the hardwoods, so that one can see just how the branches intertwine, and what growth occurred last summer. Without this clear view of treetops, one cannot be sure which tree, if any, needs felling for the good of the land."

Times have changed since Leopold penned those words more than 60 years ago. The chain saw has replaced the axe, and November is best spent on a deer stand, in a duck blind, or behind a hard-working bird dog.

January is the month of the chainsaw.

So on a cold but sunny day last week I headed into the woods, chain saw in hand. My plan was to liberate a few red oak trees, a wintertime task I've practiced for more than a decade on 70 acres of land I manage for wildlife.

To liberate a red oak tree one simply eliminates the competing trees and brush, which ultimately provides the oak with more of the essentials: sunlight, water, nutrients and room to grow.

My acreage consists primarily of alder, willow and aspen lowlands. However, here and there a red oak will have somehow taken root and, with determination, blossomed into a small tree. But the competing vegetation, especially the aspens, almost always wins the race for the sun. Without my help the oak usually loses.

And so I interfere.

Leopold also wrote this: "I find it disconcerting to analyze ex post facto, the reason behind my own axe-in-hand decisions. Where a white pine and a red birch are crowding each other, I have a bias; I always cut the birch if favor of the pine."

I have a bias for red oak. My prejudice is because oaks produce acorns. I enjoy watching, hunting and photographing the various birds and mammals that are attracted to the abundant mast. Deer, black bears and wild turkeys sift through the October leaves in their quest for the acorns. Squirrels spend November days stockpiling the nuts for the long winter ahead. So do blue jays. Wood ducks love acorns, too, and will often leave their watery habitat to scrounge beneath my oaks.

I also lean toward the oaks because they are the underdogs on my land. I have plenty of aspens. In a decade of winters I could not, using just power hand tools, remove them. Cut an aspen, and where there was just one large stem, there will be twenty or more small stems a year later.

I've read that a red oak must be 30 years old to produce its first acorns. I can't prove that, but I do know some of my liberated oaks have yielded nuts in 15 years.

Finding a red oak on my land is easy; they hold their rust-colored leaves throughout the winter. To liberate an oak I simply use a chain saw or brush cutter to clear the surrounding vegetation, especially those trees that interfere with the morning sun. I cut back the competition at least as far back as the oak is tall.

I know from past mistakes not to pile the trimmings too close to the oak tree I have liberated because if I later decide to burn the brush the extreme heat will scorch the very tree I'm trying to propagate.

When I have completed clearing around the oak, I'll analyze the tree to determine whether it needs pruning. If so, I first remove the dead branches. Then I look for branches with weak or V-shaped angles of attachment and remove those. I usually use a heavy duty pruning shears for the task, or a pole pruner to reach the higher branches. I'm careful not to prune more than about a quarter of the total branches.

Within a year of liberation the regrowth of the removed trees is well under way. Those new stems provide food for deer and cover for various other critters. Songbirds, especially various warblers, thrive in the new growth and often nest among the fresh stems.

By then, though, the liberated oak is reaching for the sun, its upper branches staying above even the fastest-growing aspens.

As I walk my 70 acres I'm continually amazed at how quickly the released oaks grow. Some of them that had only broomstick-sized trunks just a few years ago are now strong and tall with spreading crowns, their trunks as thick as my thigh. And if I pass those oaks on a windy October day, I can hear the occasional acorn drop.