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30 November 2017

Cork Oak Tree plantation

Photo credit: fturmog via Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Hi, we are going to grow cork oak trees on a 16 acre plantation. My questions are:We have prepared the land and the subsoil perfectly. We want to plant the acorns in twos and at a depth of 12-15 cm. Are we on the right track?  What is the ideal time of year to plant them?

We don’t have any subsidies and we have prepared lines that are 8 m apart to then be able to use tractors and each line has two acorns and 2 m away from them there are another 2 acorns and so on. Is this the correct way to do it? Many thanks in advance for your answers. Our plantation is in the area of Oropesa (Toledo).

Forest trees do not adapt to well-ordered tidy plantations like olive trees do, however it might be possible, although after some years more space will probably be needed between the trees, but that is a long time from now.

In principle the soils in the area of Oropesa are not rich in limestone. The cork oak tree does not like any limestone in the soil. It might be more sensitive to the cold than the holm oak and it needs an annual rainfall of about 400 mm.

The best time of the year to sow the acorns is in autumn, and it is a good idea to keep them in sealed boxes at about 2ºC before sowing them. I suppose that when the acorns germinate, each plant will need its own protective cylinder.

Apart from that, everything that you have mentioned about planting the acorns, how to prepare the soil, seems to be logical.

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