Seed collection has finished at the Jaunjelgava oak seed plantation of AS “Latvijas valsts meži” (LVM). A total of 438 kg of acorns was gathered, which will be sown at the LVM Valmiera nursery and will yield 40,000 to 50,000 selected oak seedlings.

This is the first significant crop at the Jaunjelgava plantation, where more than 600 selected pedunculate oaks (Quercus robur) grow over an area of 7 hectares. Oaks typically produce a good crop once every four to five years. At the previous plantation, and at this one too, the first significant crop came six years ago, when 112 kg of acorns were collected.

“This year's abundant crop made it possible to gather the acorns straight from the trees, before they had fallen. This way we can both ensure a higher proportion of viable seed, since fallen acorns are more often damaged, and make picking simpler, because the process requires no aids or machinery. The acorns that are collected are first taken to the cone kiln, where they are dried for a time at a set temperature. The acorns are then sorted by hand – the damaged ones are picked out, and the caps are removed from the healthy ones. Only then are they ready to go to the nursery, where they are mostly sown in open-field beds that same autumn. The oak reaches the market once it has grown on, at three years of age,” explains Jānis Auziņš, head of the LVM Kalsnava seed production district.

The oaks at the Jaunjelgava plantation were selected more than 20 years ago in the Jumprava forest stand near the Skrīveri Dendrological Park. Until now, LVM has grown oak seedlings in small quantities at its Jelgava and Valmiera nurseries, using acorns obtained from selected trees growing in the forest. This year's crop will provide selected raw material obtained from a seed production plantation in the “improved” category.

Demand for oak seedlings varies from year to year. “LVM Sēklas un stādi” sold the most oak seedlings in 2012 – 134,000 – but in recent years the figure has been a few thousand a year.

Laima Zvejniece, production executive director of “LVM Sēklas un stādi”, notes that as the proportion of broadleaved trees increases in the coming years, demand for oak seedlings is also forecast to grow. Individual forest owners in Latvia and customers from Estonia have already shown interest in the new oak seedlings.

Oaks account for less than 1% of the forests managed by LVM, and they are mostly planted in special locations, such as peri-urban forests or as part of specific nature conservation projects. This spring, for example, several thousand oaks were planted along the banks of the river Tora in order to deliberately increase the share of broadleaved trees in the riparian belt and thereby improve water quality. Over the past four years, the largest area of oak planted in state forests was in 2022 – 14.75 hectares.

The oak is a slow-growing species. The pedunculate oak grows very slowly up to the age of 10 and then begins to grow somewhat faster. When oak seedlings are planted in the forest under favourable growing conditions, the leading shoot grows 50-70 cm a year. The oak's longest annual shoots come at around 60-80 years of age, while its greatest increase in diameter occurs at 50-60 years of age.