- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Oak trees are iconic in California's landscape. Just about anything you would like to know about caring for the state's 8 million acres of oak woodlands is now accessible to the public online. University of California Cooperative Extension scientists have updated the UC Oaks website at https://oaks.cnr.berkeley.edu with oak ecology, management and oak woodland conservation information based on over 30 years of research.
“On the home page, we have highlighted oak topics – such as oak planting, oak ecology and rangeland management – that have been of special interest to website users,” said Bill Tietje, UC Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist at UC Berkeley, based in San Luis Obispo.
About 80% of the oak woodlands in California are privately owned, with the majority used for grazing, primarily by beef cattle.
“We added some of the latest UC oak research and plan to promote the website to groups who have not historically used it, in particular, the ranching community,” said Devii Rao, UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor for San Benito, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. “It is essential that landowners and managers have the tools they need to maintain healthy trees and conserve large-scale oak woodlands.”
Development policy, livestock management on rangelands, urban oak care, oak regeneration, effects of wildfire on oaks, wildlife and threats to oak woodlands are featured on the website.
Since its creation in 1995 by emeritus UC Cooperative Extension specialist Rick Standiford, the website, originally called UC Oak Woodland Management, has been a valuable educational resource, with an average of 45,000 visitors annually.
Updating and redesigning the website for mobile devices was funded by a Renewable Resources Extension Act Capacity Grant received by Tietje, Rao and Luke Macaulay, UC Cooperative Extension specialist rangeland planning and policy specialist at UC Berkeley. They worked with a professional designer to improve the website's functionality and visual appeal, and will continue to add new information.
To increase user friendliness, the UCCE team created links at the top of the UC Oaks home page for its three primary target audiences: homeowners, land-use planners and ranchers.
If you can't find an answer, click the “Ask an Oak Expert” button to submit your question and a UCCE oak expert will reply.
“With its new look and expanded reach, we hope that the website will be a one-stop shop for everything people need to know about oak woodland conservation and management,” said Rao, who manages the website.
One thing we want to explore is the viability of direct seeding acorns "off the grid" from water. If there's a way to successfully do this, it would drastically reduce the cost and expand the scope of what we could achieve.
If there's someone in UC with a research interest relevant to that, it would be very helpful if we could have some dialog.
Thank you.