Des Moines Register
06-14-06
Iowa's oaks fade from landscape
Deer, disease, other species hurt symbol
By PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
Iowa's state tree, the oak, is hurting.
Part of the problem is a group of diseases and conditions with names like oak wilt
and oak tatters that cause damage residents should watch for, experts say.
Much of the situation is just nature. Without the benefit of fires that kept species
in balance before widespread farming and development, Iowa's landscape is
heavy on shady maples and basswoods and increasingly light on hardy, acornproducing oaks.
Oaks need light - preferably from three directions - to grow.
Without help, oaks could disappear from the state. At the current rate of loss, the
trees would be gone in 150 years.
"It would be sad to think that there may not be another generation of them," said
Anita O'Gara, spokeswoman for the nonprofit Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation,
a preservation group whose logo is an oak tree outline inside an acorn. "You
know what they say, 'The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best
time is today.' "
This is an environmental issue - and an economic one. More than 70 species of
animals eat acorns in Iowa. And the oak wood, a renewable resource, feeds 50
Iowa sawmills and businesses that employ 10,000 to 15,000 Iowans who make
cabinets and other wood products.
So the Iowa Department of Natural Resources is coming up with a new plan to
encourage landowners to open areas in forests where oaks have a fighting
chance, said state forester John Walkowiak.
"If someone chooses to go for oak, we have a chance" of saving the species,
Walkowiak said. "If they don't, we have no chance."
Many oaks are dying of old age, having sprouted between the presidencies of
Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Pierce - between 200 and 150 years ago.
Some occasionally fall from unusual conditions such as "tatters" and "wilt"
caused by fungi, pests, pesticides or frost. Acorns struggle to produce new oaks
that might shade the future's children because shady trees such as hackberry,
ironwood, maple and basswood like to take over the landscape. Iowa's abundant
deer often eat oak seedlings.
Left alone, Iowa's forests would wind up with a lot of shady soft trees that might
succumb to storms - and not many hardwoods such as oak, the state tree since
1961. With little fire to clear areas where oaks might grow, foresters and
landowners are left to do that work themselves, if the state tree is to survive.
Iowa's forest actually is coming back, covering more acres now than in 1954 - 2.8
million versus 2.6 million.
Oaks, though, are showing signs of trouble. Last year, a flyover survey found that
1,422 acres of Iowa's 933,000 acres of oak forest had oak wilt or other potentially
fatal problems. Iowa has lost 7,175 acres of oaks a year since 1954.
A variety of oak species - pin, white and bur, among others - are found in 46
percent of the state's forest land.
About 90 percent of that land is privately owned. Federal aid through the
Conservation Reserve Program and the work of Iowa State University and
Department of Natural Resources have encouraged many people to act.
Walkowiak and his staff are negotiating with the Iowa Department of Agriculture
and Land Stewardship to offer bonuses to landowners for restoring or preserving
forest land.
The husband-and-wife forestry team of Rick and Linda Elbert of Ames bought
100 acres of woodland near Ogden several years ago and wanted to manage the
forest.
They took ISU's woodland manager course. They had 900 oak and walnut trees
logged to clean things out and started replanting "to put back at least as many
trees as we removed," said Rick Elbert, an Ames chiropractor.
The couple planted 400 oaks and 200 walnuts in 2003. Every year since, he's
been planting two to three acres with acorns he collects, with permission, from
Ames parks and neighbors.
"You look in the spring and you have these baby seedlings, and I feel like a
proud father," Elbert said.
Walkowiak, the state forester, said federal programs often fight for money, yet
the number of forest owners in Iowa has risen to 138,000 from 55,000 in 1994.
That means more people owning smaller chunks of the forest, which doubles as
habitat for all kinds of animals and birds.
And a prime spot for the state tree, which is struggling to stay on the landscape.