Originally Posted by haystack

Welcome to the forum dmese! and good to hear your into wildlife management.

I fertilize Oaks with 10-10-10 and roughly calculate how much to apply by measuring the diameter of the tree at breast height and then use 2 #'s of fertilizer for every inch of diameter, and spread the fertilizer from the base of the tree to out just past the drip line. The fertilizer can be added to holes made by a crow bar etc. to help keep weeds from using it up, but a lot of my ground is very rocky and I just scatter it instead.

That I know of, there's no scientific proof that fertilizing Oaks increases acorn production and I can't say I've seen any certain benefit, but I figure as long as fertilizer isn't over applied, it can't hurt.

The fact that Oaks are naturally inconsistent at producing acorns and lots of things influence acorn crops, spring frost, insects, rainfall etc makes saying for certain fertilizing increases acorn production tricky at best.

Cutting down competing trees seems to be the most beneficial thing one can do to help Oaks and many other mast producing trees achieve their full potential.

Maybe a couple members here will have some better ideas as well.