working landscape tree planting

[sue wickham]

Does anyone have experience with planting buckeye trees in working landscapes. We are seeking others sucess and pitfall stories of planting buckeye seeds in grazed lands. We typically use cages to protect them from cattle ( Ithas been working so far). In particular, We'd like to know how long it takes a buckeye to gofrom seedling to a flowering tree, in general, and sucess rates for non-irrigated plantings. We are just eastof San Francisco ( solano County).

Any help is appreciated.
swgeo@sbcglobal.net

[Greg Rubin]

Buckeye seed is large and seems to germinate readily. My only concern is that you should find out whether it is toxic to cattle - I know it is deadly to humans (all parts) and I think horses. I would check it out if you haven't already.

Greg Rubin

[Dan]

i would be interested in the research you do finding if cattle actually browse this material or eat the large seeds that fall. I would 'think' they would be poisonous if ingested but it might be equaliy important if you can find source that show the cattle do or don't eat the buckeye.
They are (for example) supposed to be very poisonous to honeybees, but we find that since the bees don't really polinate them much, there is very little damage done to honeybee populations. Of course we would expect native bee populations to "know better" but it seems even european honeybees avoid it. I have two in my garden in so cal and have yet to see a bee in them-lots of butterflies and no damage to them. So i am wondering if the cattle stay away?
Regarding growth rates i am sure others from your area would be better qualified to answer (and i work with clay soils) but will say depending on the all important winter rains, that after the first year of growth we could be looking at up to two feet a year (or more) and a fair sized flowering shrub-like shape in 5-6 years. With droughts you would be looking at a loss of a fair percentage of your "crop". That brings up another point are you keeping records of the number of seeds planted and the ones that make it through the years and the corresponding rainfall? could be interesting.
Best-Dan

[StevenCochrane]

Hi Sue: We have planted buckeye in grazed areas also screening them from deer and cows. We grew the seeds in a nursery setting for a year before transplanting to the site. We planted the trees in site conditions (soil, slope, etc.) to mimic the parent tree sites. We were very careful to not plant in any remnant native grass areas (purple needle grass and creeping wild rye). After ten years the buckeyes are about 10' tall.