Saint John’s Students, Staff and Help Restore Arboretum’s Oak Population

(KNSI) — A program to reinvigorate the 3,000-acre Saint John’s Arboretum has been going on for the last 20 years as Saint John’s University students, staff, and volunteers carefully replant white and red oaks on the campus while also using the arboretum as a learning lab for students of all ages.

Teams clear out five-acre swaths of century-and-a-half-old trees and use the lumber for the school’s woodworking classes. The cutting clears the way to plant 500 new oaks, and the saplings come from the arboretum’s acorns and are grown in nurseries.

The once-abundant trees were cut down during logging operations and used as building and heating material, while Saint John’s Abbey planted roots in the 1860s. Officials say that when the cutting was done, what sprouted were oaks from a single age class. Abbey Land Manager John Geissler explained to KNSI News that’s a problem because as the trees die off, they leave a gap in the ecosystem. “Oaks are the number one supporter of wildlife of any other tree, because they drop acorns, they’re a great food source for just a lot of different species. So, one example, oaks support 400 different types of caterpillars.”

The oaks struggle to grow in the shaded canopy of an old forest and take longer to reach their towering heights because their roots need to dig in deeper than other trees. Historically, fires cleared out shallow-rooted trees, leaving the oaks to thrive. Without human intervention, new oaks are outgrown by other trees.

Geissler says another major threat is keeping the newly planted oaks safe from deer, which Geissler says is difficult due to the overpopulation, so they have to help the trees out. “We put cages around them, we prune back the vegetation around them, and then we’ll get that next generation started.”

Their goal is to do five acres every year. If they do that, crews will return to the same spot every 150 years. The campus is looking for volunteers to help every Wednesday from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.

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