Once planted, Virginia's little acorns have big potential

WAYNESBORO

From little acorns mighty oak trees grow, but first you've got to find the little acorns and plant them.

This was not lost on Rockett Morgan recently as she sat in the grass under a white oak tree at Augusta Stone Presbyterian Church, picking up acorns one at a time and dropping them into a canvas bag.

"I never knew there were so many species of acorns," she said.

In fact, 10 species are collected by the Virginia Department of Forestry for planting in the seedling nursery in Augusta County. At that nursery and one near Courtland in Southampton County, the department grows 32 million hardwood and evergreen trees each year for sale.

There are worse ways to spend a fall morning than sitting under a tree picking up acorns. It was chilly, about 45 degrees at 8 a.m., but the sun was bright, the maples were starting to change color and only occasionally did falling acorns land on Morgan's head. She and her husband had volunteered to help the forestry staff collect the nuts; at another church a few miles away, an inmate crew was gathering white oak acorns.

Morgan and her husband, John, are full-time RV-ers. They will spend five weeks parked at the nursery, donating 20 hours of work each week in exchange for a campsite before moving to New Mexico for their next volunteer gig.

"We really didn't have any idea what a seedling nursery was at all," she said. "It's certainly a first time for us."

But not for the forestry staff, which spends several weeks a year gathering nuts.

"The best way to do it is just collect by hand, get down on hands and knees," said Joshua McLaughlin, a nursery forester. "If the acorns are real thick, we sit on our bottoms."

That was how Morgan was doing it, because the acorns were indeed thick under the white oaks. But in the Shenandoah Valley, pin oaks and northern red oaks have produced few or no acorns this year, so the Forestry Department has put out a statewide appeal for donations from any tree owners willing to bag up their acorns and deliver them to their city or county's forestry office.

Also needed are black oak, cherry-bark oak, chestnut oak, southern red oak, swamp chestnut oak, swamp white oak and willow oak, in addition to Chinese chestnuts.

The department's guidelines for collecting can be found at www.tinyurl.com/48hokw, but, in a nutshell, here are the two biggest things to remember: Don't mix acorns from different species in one bag, and please put a few tree leaves in the bag before sealing it to help with identification.

Foresters are not above knocking on someone's door and asking to pick up their acorns - most people say yes because it's a free yard cleanup - and if the species in question is a Chinese chestnut, the department will also take away the spiny burrs.

The most amazing thing, McLaughlin said, is how many people don't know what acorns are.

"They'll say, 'Are you all trying to feed the squirrels?' " he said. "They don't realize they'll produce trees."

So far, the department has collected about 2,600 pounds of white oak acorns.

Twice that amount is needed. McLaughlin keeps a tally on a legal pad: On Sept. 16, for example, 360 pounds were collected from a house, 40 pounds from a churchyard and 210 pounds from Augusta Stone Presbyterian, where five people were working a week later.

Three were picking up nuts by hand. Sometimes they use a bucket truck to pick acorns off pin oaks, but because this was white oak, Joyce Landram was rolling a cylinder made of fine wire across the ground - acorns popped through and were trapped inside. Another worker was pushing a large machine that resembled a hairbrush head - the Bag-A-Nut.

It picked up acorns that stuck between the bristles on the roller, but it also collected sticks, leaves and other trash that will be filtered out by pouring the nuts past a large fan.

Then the seeds go into 50-gallon drums of water to drown any worms, and then into cold storage until harvest is done and planting time comes, around Oct. 15.

The seedlings will grow for just over a year, until they are 12 to 18 inches tall. Then they are pulled, boxed and shipped bare-root to buyers at a cost that ranges from about 31 cents to $1 a tree, depending on volume ordered.

The nursery has about 275,000 white oak seedlings ready for sale from last year's planting, McLaughlin said.

Many other tree species are also available, including river birch, black alder and Norway spruce. Next year's crop is still falling off the parent trees.

"I've seen chestnut oak acorns the size of golf balls," McLaughlin said. "Believe me, if you're under a tree collecting and the wind starts blowing, get out from under the tree because they do hurt when they fall."

White oak acorns were thumping the ground all around the collectors. The sun was warming the air. A horse in the field across the fence whinnied.

"You having fun yet?" McLaughlin asked Morgan.

"Actually, I have been," she said.

Diane Tennant, (757) 446-2478, diane.tennant@pilotonline.com