Julie Finzel and Rebecca Ozeran (UCCE Livestock Advisors in the Central Valley) and I are interested in developing a research project related to oaks and we want to make sure to the project will be valuable to our clientele. So, on September 14, 2018 I sent out an email to several people on the Central Coast to ask them to fill out a survey related to oaks. On September 22, 2018 I posted a short blog article to a much wider audience, asking people to fill out the seven-question survey. Julie and Rebecca shared the survey with their clientele as well.
Between 9/14/2018 and 9/27/2019, 49 people filled out the survey. The vast majority of surveys were filled out in 2018. Question 1 was, “What county are you based in?” Some people identified more than one county. Therefore, when added up there appear to be more than 49 responses. Forty percent (24) of California's 58 counties were represented in the survey. Most responses were from San Benito County (Figure 1). In addition, more than two responses were received from Monterey, Fresno, Madera, and San Luis Obispo counties.
Question 2 was, “What is your role in the landscape?” The predefined answers were “rancher,” “agency,” “academic,” and “consultant.” People were allowed to choose more than one option. People who chose “other” identified themselves as follows: biologist, non-governmental organization, land trust, small acreage landowner, non-profit, advocate, tribal landowner, and environmental educator. Some people who chose one of the predefined options added more specificity to their roles by indicating: property manager/fire mitigation specialist, gardener, manage land that is grazed by someone else's cattle, and ranch owner (but not livestock operator). Figure 2 summarizes the roles: 22 ranchers, 11 other, 9 agency staff, 2 academics, and 2 consultants. In addition, nine people did not identify their role on the land. For all but two, this is because when I originally sent out the survey, I did not have a question for role. Only later did I decide that it would be valuable to have the option to categorize responses by peoples' role. Some people identified more than one role. Therefore, when added up there appear to be more than 49 responses.
Question 3 was, “Are oaks on your ranch / in your area important to you: yes or no?” All, but one respondent said that oaks on their ranch or in their area are important. We also asked why oaks were, or were not, important to them (Figure 3 and Table 1). This was on open-ended question with no pre-defined answers, so people could write anything they chose. Several themes came up more than once. Responses identified in just one survey are not included here. The four most common responses were that oaks are important habitat, provide shade, are beautiful, and provide a host of other ecosystem services. Interestingly, nine people said that oaks are important because they represent California's natural and/or human heritage. A few people said oaks are important because they are old and are disappearing, provide erosion control, are native, and are used for firewood.
Question 4 was, “Which of these questions are most important to you?” There were three predetermined questions (Figure 4 and Table 2). Respondents were allowed to choose more than one option. Twenty-eight people wanted to know how they can prevent their oaks from dying. Twenty-seven respondents wanted to know how they can increase the number of oaks on their properties. And 18 wanted to know why their oaks are dying.
We also asked if there were other questions not listed that were important. See Appendix A, Table 1 for all additional questions that were important to respondents. Here are some of the responses:
- What do I do about too much sapling recruitment?
- Oak woodland recovery after wildland fire.
- How do I decide where best to plant oaks on my property, and which varieties?
- How do we have oaks and grazing?
- What was historic oak cover?
- Oak recruitment and mortality (demography; age distribution). Habitat conditions that promote oak recruitment. Blue oak and Valley oak.
- How can I easily census oaks, including age classes, and determine population viability and effective recruitment?
- Facilitating regeneration on landscape scales.
- Pruning to keep balance, prevent splitting or dropping large branches.
Question 5 was, “Which of these topics do you want to know more about?” Respondents were allowed to choose more than one of the pre-defined options. Invasive species on oak woodlands was the topic most people (37) wanted to know more about (Figure 5 and Table 3), followed by ecological site descriptions at 22 responses, and both carbon dynamics and climate change at 21 responses. Four people said they did not want more information about any of the listed topics.
We also asked what other topics they wanted to know more about. See Appendix A, Table 2 for all additional topics respondents wanted to know more about. Here are some of the responses:
- Long-term population dynamics, prehistoric role of CA Indians in oak distribution
- How can oak management be directed to influence soil characteristics such as water infiltration rates, soil carbon, organic matter, bulk density and water holding capacity on rangelands?
- There are a number of somewhat recent pest threats, including disease and insects, that would be good to learn about, as well as, to understand the symptoms and where to take detection samples for analysis.
- Getting Native Californians more involved in management of their ancestral lands.
- Encouraging the NRCS and their partners to complete ESD's on MLRA's 15 and 17 would go far to facilitate planning and implementation of improved grazing management.
- I would like to know how the understory was managed a thousand years ago.
- I'd love to learn more about oak woodland habitat succession and the dynamics that interplay between associate species!
Question 6 was, “What questions do you need answers to regarding oak trees or oak woodlands?” This was on open-ended question with no pre-defined answers, so people could write anything they chose. Answers were wide ranging. See Appendix A, Table 3 for entire list of questions respondents need answers to regarding oak trees and oak woodlands. Here are some of the responses:
- The value of trimming and thinning in oak survival.
- How to get blue oaks started?
- What other than drought is killing the trees?
- What are the benefits, as well as negative consequences, of having heavily wooded areas (mainly oaks)?
- How can we support and/or encourage oak regeneration on rangelands? Are there passive management actions (i.e. planned grazing) that can facilitate oak regeneration or must we rely on active oak restoration via planting seedlings/acorns?
- Do livestock, primarily cattle, have an effect on oak mortality and if so can it be reduced by changing grazing patterns such as removing summer grazing. What effects do native herbivores have on young oaks?
- Where is oak restoration feasible under climate change projections?
- Vulnerability of oak habitats/ecosystems to climate change and other stressors.
- How can oak recruitment be facilitated on compacted rangeland soils?
Question 7 was, “What factors do you think influence oak mortality in your area?” There were three predetermined questions (Figure 6 and Table 4). Respondents were allowed to choose more than one option. Most people thought drought was influencing oak mortality in their areas, followed by disease and insect pests. Only 13 people chose “other” but 19 gave responses for other factors they think influence oak mortality.
See Appendix A, Table 4 for all additional factors respondents think influence oak mortality in their areas. Here are some of the responses:
- Grazing management and its effect on the water cycle.
- The feral hogs do a lot of damage.
- All ecological factors interact (synergistic) to result in oak mortality.
- Competition from non-native grasses.
- Climate change, non-native annual grasses (young oaks), livestock browse (young oaks) and soil compaction (regeneration).
- Grazing upon oak seedlings.
- Mistletoe
On April 28 and 29 UCCE will hold our Oak Woodland Workgroup meeting at UC Berkeley to discuss potential research projects to begin addressing some of these issues.
Appendix A: Detailed Responses to Four Questions
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Table 1: Question 4 - Additional questions that were important to respondents
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Rancher
- What do I do about too much sapling recruitment?
- How can I discourage the feral hogs from gorging on all the acorns?
- I don't believe oaks are inordinately dying, but they are not maintaining numbers, which should be distinguished. If oaks die naturally at about 100 years, then for every 100 oaks, there should be one new one, on average, every year. That's not happening at the edge of the oak woodlands in the Sierra Foothills in Madera County.
- Oak woodland recovery after wildland fire.
- How do I decide where best to plant oaks on my property, and which varieties?
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Agency
- Oak recruitment and mortality (demography; age distribution). Habitat conditions that promote oak recruitment. Blue oak and Valley oak.
- How do we have oaks and grazing?
- What was historic oak cover?
- What are the soil and climate thresholds that determine oak mortality during drought? Why is it worse in some counties and watersheds?
- How can I easily census oaks, including age classes, and determine population viability and effective recruitment?
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Other
- I am broadly interested in the conservation of oak woodlands. Oak woodland restoration as an additional topic of interest to me.
- Natural recruitment is way too dense. Saplings can be a foot apart. They do not die from intraspecific competition. They just all inhibit each other and get too tall & thin. How can I fund oak management when there are so many other land management issues?
- Facilitating regeneration on landscape scales continues to be a perplexing problem with as yet, no easy answers.
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No role identified
- Pruning to keep balance, prevent splitting or dropping large branches.
- How can I help the oaks stay healthy? I know they need fire and I know they need their crowns to be thinned. This is a huge task. How do I do this? Are there people skilled in native oak management techniques that the native people used for thousands of years?
- How can I support the growth of new oaks?
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Table 2: Question 5 - Other topics that people wanted to know more about
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Rancher
- Oak regeneration.
- Fire ecology.
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Agency
- Sudden oak death.
- Long-term population dynamics, prehistoric role of CA Indians in oak distribution.
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Academic
- Landscape scale changes in oak abundance.
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Other
- How can oak management be directed to influence soil characteristics such as water infiltration rates, soil carbon, organic matter, bulk density and water holding capacity on rangelands?
- There are a number of somewhat recent pest threats, including disease and insects, that would be good to learn about, as well as, to understand the symptoms and where to take detection samples for analysis.
- Use of fire to manage riparian forest. Getting Native Californians more involved in management of their ancestral lands. Management techniques for wild CA grape.
- Encouraging the NRCS and their partners to complete ESD's on MLRA's 15 and 17 would go far to facilitate planning and implementation of improved grazing management.
- Oak diversity.
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Role not identified
- I would like to know how the understory was managed a thousand years ago.
- I'd love to learn more about oak woodland habitat succession and the dynamics that interplay between associate species!
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Table 3: Question 6 - Questions people need answers to regarding oak trees or oak woodlands
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Rancher
- How can I help them by thinning where they are too close together? Amount of pruning that is best?
- Ways to protect saplings and best places to plant them.
- How do I manage for highly functional grasslands and savannas without encouraging too much sapling recruitment to a savanna landscape? Or, is it a problem to have too many young oaks?
- The value of trimming and thinning in oak survival.
- Oak variety information.
- In some places it doesn't seem like the oaks are regenerating (no seedlings present). Why?
- How to get blue oaks started? I'm investing incredible amounts of time and, therefore, money in protections primarily from grasshoppers to get just a handful of blue oaks to make it through the summer.
- What other than drought is killing the trees?
- What are the benefits, as well as negative consequences, of having heavily wooded areas (mainly oaks)?
- Why are the oaks dying? Are different species more susceptible to issues; insects, disease, drought?
- How can we support and/or encourage oak regeneration on rangelands? Are there passive management actions (i.e. planned grazing) that can facilitate oak regeneration or must we rely on active oak restoration via planting seedlings/acorns?
- Re: increasing oak population - we see very few saplings or young trees - why? What can I do to improve reforestation?
- How do I acknowledge and chart the value of oak woodlands in a ranching context? I can't really sell much as a direct product from native oak trees, yet they are so critical to everything I do.
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Agency
- What habitat conditions promote oak recruitment? Blue oak and Valley oak?
- Do livestock, primarily cattle, have an effect on oak mortality and if so can it be reduced by changing grazing patterns such as removing summer grazing. What effects do native herbivores have on young oaks?
- How to assess the health of the woodland, effects of drought and increased grassland fire risk?
- Annual production, net primary productivity and biomass on different soil types across the state in different climate zones. More long-term studies on oak ecology, oak temporal production, etc.
- Where is oak restoration feasible under climate change projections?
- What are the best strategies to increase oak regeneration and retention?
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Other
- I am broadly interested in research focused on the ecology of oak taxa, the dynamics of oak woodlands, and studies which attempt to elucidate ecological relationships within oak systems. Also, studies that assess the vulnerability of oak habitats/ecosystems to climate change and other stressors.
- How do we increase oak regeneration with traditional management approaches such as animal impact?
- There is some kind of a beetle species that carries a fungus infecting oaks. Has it reached San Benito County?
- How can we get Sacramento County to allow prescribed burns? Can dense coverage of CA wild grape cause the death of a mature valley oak tree? How can I predict a good or bad acorn year for valley oaks? Does Koenig's correlation between March/April sunshine & blue oaks hold true for valley oaks?
- How can oak recruitment be facilitated on compacted rangeland soils?
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Role not identified
- How to manage the oak woodlands and very importantly how to manage the Lace Lichen which is symbiotically extremely important and is being destroyed by the air quality?
- Why are we just losing our valley oaks? Our blue oaks and live oaks are doing well.
- What are the best practices to invest in, in order for oak woodlands to thrive in the future?
- What oaks should we plant?
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Table 4: Question 7 - Other factors that people think affect oak mortality
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Rancher
- Primarily drought at present time.
- No nearby oaks.
- Grazing management and its effect on the water cycle.
- The feral hogs do a lot of damage.
- Development, lack of understanding or awareness of the importance of oaks.
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Agency
- All ecological factors interact (synergistic) to result in oak mortality.
- Sudden oak death is affecting many of our coast live and black oaks. Does it increase or decrease in drought conditions?
- Runoff, water not staying on site.
- Competition from non-native grasses.
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Other
- Climate change, non-native annual grasses (young oaks), livestock browse (young oaks) and soil compaction (regeneration).
- Residential development / state and federal quarantine non-compliance / unintentional and intentional non-compliance with quarantine regulations.
- Careless backhoe drivers who think the best way to prune an 18-diameter branch is to break it off with the bucket.
- Death by a thousand cuts. Probably no single answer but the accumulated stress of drought and other climate impacts, that enable pests and disease are likely culprits.
- Grazing of seedlings.
- Drought and increasing temperatures (Climate Change) created a perfect storm- the oaks' evapotranspiration outstripped the water available.
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Role not identified
- Grazing.
- Mortality of Lace Lichen and how to help it survive and thrive. How to keep the mistletoe at bay?
- Grazing upon oak seedlings. It worries me to see no saplings growing near our mature, majestic oaks.
- #1 – drought, #2 – mistletoe, #3 – disease. Scrub and blue oaks - mistletoe.
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