Annual Bearing White Oaks

Hi Permies,
I am zone 6, Pennsylvania, USA. I am looking for an oak in the white oak group that bears a consistent annual crop of acorns. Lots of red oaks bear annually, but I am not aware of any in the white group.

Any suggestions?

i’m curious why you’re only interested in white-family oaks. any particular reason?

the closest i can suggest is sawtooth oak, which is in a special group and has some characteristics of both the red and white groups. the acorns are much more like white family than red - very low oil content.

We have Oregon white oaks, quercus garryana. They produce every year at least they have since we've been here. Some years produce more than others, but that's normal.

I have 10 acres of woods, full of red oaks, but not a single white. White oaks usually have significantly less tannin in the acorns, and tend to live longer. So those are a few of the reasons. Need more diversity want low tannin acorns, and long life.

greg mosser wrote:i’m curious why you’re only interested in white-family oaks. any particular reason?

the closest i can suggest is sawtooth oak, which is in a special group and has some characteristics of both the red and white groups. the acorns are much more like white family than red - very low oil content.

I have been told that my oak trees are white oak and live oak.

After reading your post I decided to look the trees up to ID them.

Both trees give acorn every year. I get two different shaped acorns. Both trees have a similar looking leaf, except one has leaves all winter so it is a live oak.

This appears to be the one that loses its leaves:

Mexican white oak (Quercus polymorpha)

https://gardenerspath.com/plants/landscape-trees/mexican-white-oak/

I will let you do the research to prove that it gives acorns every year.  I could not find that information.

fair enough! for what it’s worth, my experience with leaching acorns has been that the difference in tannin content between the two is matter of small degrees - if you notice a difference in leaching times, it’ll be minimal. and reds are excellent eating acorns - the higher oil content makes them more rich and flavorful.