This is a hybrid oak - overcup oak x white oak. It was planted in March, 2011 as an 18 inch seedling.
(Click to enlarge)
This photo was taken yesterday, against a darkening Mississippi sky. That tree is now 11 feet 8 inches tall. (The tree tube is 4ft tall and the photograph is taken from ground level looking up.)
Let me be a little more clear, because it really is hard to wrap your brain around this: In just two growing seasons this tree has grown 10 feet 3 inches since being planted as a seedling.
When I take a step back I shouldn't be surprised. In fact these are the kind of results that I believe will become commonplace in the next decade. It is the result of several factors:
1) Tree seedling planting stock is much, much better than ever. Nurseries are selecting seed from superior trees, and are producing healthy, vigorous planting stock (especially stock growing in root-pruning pots) that is ready to "hit the ground running" with little or no transplant shock.
2) Trees - even oak trees - actually, especially oak trees - are inherently capable of remarkable growth. Reaching that growth potential is simply a matter of removing the obstacles - the stresses - that prevent it from growing as fast as it might. Those stresses include weed competition, drought, lack of nutrients, and of course animal browse.
3) Tree Tubes make it easy for growers to eliminate most if not all of those stresses:
> They shield tree seedlings from deer browse
> They make it easy to locate tree seedlings amidst the grass and brush, and protect them from weed control treatments that eliminate vegetative competition (thus making more moisture, nutrients and light available to the seedling)
> The shelter tree seedlings from drying winds, and capture and condense transpired moisture, returning it to the soil to be re-absorbed by the seedling.
In subsequent posts we'll be looking at how to achieve peak growth performance like this!
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