FORESTRY

Tree Conservation TAKES ROOTS

The White Oak Initiative is sowing solutions to a forestry threat

In North America, white oak is a towering hardwood. Across the nation’s central and eastern woodlands, the deciduous tree has a robust presence. But that level of existence may change decades from now. According to University of Kentucky Associate Professor of Silviculture Dr. John Lhotka, the forests in the eastern U.S. with white oak are predicted to lose 77% of the tree species in 50 years if no action is taken.

Real-Life Action Heroes

That stark outlook led to the formation of a large regional coalition of diverse allies, founded

by the University of Kentucky, called the White Oak Initiative. University of Tennessee Professor of Forestry Dr. Wayne Clatterbuck is driving the initiative for Tennessee and contends that the movement’s goal is to provide education and guidelines on white oak regeneration options to forest practitioners and consultants so they can support private landowners. “We’ll be conducting both professional in-service training and speaking to forest landowner groups about regeneration options to maintain white oak in future stands,” Clatterbuck says.

Candace Dinwiddie, a representative on the White Oak

Initiative Steering Committee, coordinates a grant from the Tennessee Department of by the University of Kentucky, Agriculture that provides educational training to Tennessee landowners. Regionally, she works on an American Forest Foundation project that supports research and activities related to growing healthy white oak. “The tree species is a major component of our state’s forests, and the products made from white oak provide thousands of jobs for Tennesseans, particularly in rural and economically distressed counties,” Dinwiddie says.

Spirits of the Forest

In addition to a workforce depending on white oak sustainability, a wide variety of wildlife inhabits the oak forests

HOW TO IDENTIFY WHITE OAK TREES

» The bark is off-white to ashy gray in color. » Bark is scaly, patchy and overlapping. » Acorns are ⅜ to 1¼ inches long. » Leaves are dark green with brighter green middle veins. » Leaves are deep lobed with rounded edges. Lobes are rounded divisions of the leaves separated by spaces, called sinuses. » Leaves have 7 to 9 lobes and are 5 to 9 inches long.

Sources: Sciencing.com, Iowa State Extension, UT Extension

and is nourished by the acorns. “There’s also a concern for the wine and spirits industry, the hardwood products, and for lumber exports that the stock may diminish,” Clatterbuck says. “And, if it diminishes then the supply won’t meet the demand.”

In particular, the appetite for luxury segments of American whiskey, especially Tennessee whiskey, exploded in recent years. The spirit is aged in a new charred white oak barrel, serving as a key ingredient to the production process.

Tennessee whiskey brand Jack Daniel’s leads global whiskey sales and is built on a legacy that compelled the great-great grandniece of Jack Daniel to join the White Oak Initiative Steering Committee. Alexandra Richman is the chief operating officer of Cumberland Springs Land Company, overseeing her family’s 6,000-acre forest in Lynchburg. Richman’s grandfather and his siblings sold the Jack Daniel’s distillery decades ago, but the land that sprouted the business remains in the family under Richman’s care. “I’ve planted at least 100,000 white

Whiskey barrels made from white oak

oaks on my family’s property,” Richman says. “If you want white oak to stay on the land, you have to keep managing them because they’ll lose to competing species.”

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

The regeneration challenges stem from insufficient environmental conditions and require strategic reforestation.

“We have overstory trees intercepting all of the sunlight and understory trees supporting all of the shade-loving species,” Clatterbuck says. “We need the conditions that provide an intermediate sunlight to support oak.”

Through active forest management, those conditions can be created.

“There are all kinds of things that landowners can do to improve their land,” Richman says. “Contacting a professional forester first is a really good idea. And it’s important to get multiple bids from loggers and not just sell trees to the first logger who shows up at your door.”

If forest management is costprohibitive for landowners, the White Oak Initiative is offering help. Clatterbuck is working on the adaptation of cost-share programs to provide landowners funds from the federal government through the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“Invested landowners need to make an extra effort to secure white oak in their future forest,” Clatterbuck says. “Regenerating white oak to sustain forests is a process. We must plan ahead, before the harvest, to secure slower-growing regeneration.” – Rachel Akers

WHITE OAK FACTS

White oak trees grow approximately one foot per year.

THE TREES PRODUCE ACORNS AT 50 TO 100

YEARS OLD.

Most trees grow 50 to 75 feet tall.

Oaks are pollinated by the wind.

Sources: Sciencing.com, Iowa State Extension, UT Extension, Arbor Day Foundation

Find more online

To locate a consulting forester, visit tnforestry.com/about-tfa. Learn more about the White Oak Initiative at fwf.tennessee.edu/ white-oak-initiative.