Oak trees and hormone spray to prevent acorns

[Shane]

Anybody have any experience doing this? How effective was it?

I'm thinking about doing it this year to prevent my trees in the yard from producing acorns. Is DIY doable if I buy a powerful sprayer? I'd buy the sprayer to do it myself every year if it works. I haven't priced the service from an arborist, but I figure it wouldn't be cheap??

[Shane]

I have red oaks and a live oak that I'd like to treat, if it works.

[mrc]

Never heard of this, but im in for more info.

[tkuehn5410]

I neuter a bunch of oaks in Lubbock, and have great success with it. You need Florel, and I don't believe it's a restricted product, so you shouldn't have trouble finding it from your local nursery. Biggest part on oaks is timing. You need to spray them as the blooms are going from light green to the yellow color. Too early and you have limited control, and too late you get limited control. Some properties I may have to go back 3 times because only one or two trees were ready at time of spraying.

[Shane]

Thanks for the info.

I scooped up a dumpster full of acorns out of my back yard the other day. Literally a few hundred pounds of them. I'd LOVE to not have to do that again.

[PapaBear]

I neuter a bunch of oaks in Lubbock, and have great success with it. You need Florel, and I don't believe it's a restricted product, so you shouldn't have trouble finding it from your local nursery. Biggest part on oaks is timing. You need to spray them as the blooms are going from light green to the yellow color. Too early and you have limited control, and too late you get limited control. Some properties I may have to go back 3 times because only one or two trees were ready at time of spraying.

This is great advice. Shane if you cant find anybody in Abilene(I am sure someone can get it though), let me know and I can get it for you.

[Shane]

This is great advice. Shane if you cant find anybody in Abilene(I am sure someone can get it though), let me know and I can get it for you.

Awesome. Didn't realize you're an arborist. What is a ballpark range of what it might cost me to just have somebody like you do the spraying for me? I have 3 red oaks and 1 live oak.

[spro]

Thanks for the info.

I scooped up a dumpster full of acorns out of my back yard the other day. Literally a few hundred pounds of them. I'd LOVE to not have to do that again.

Feed them to the deer. I have two red oaks in my front yard and started gathering the acorns and throwing them out at the lease. My deer numbers have tripled since then. Notice the corn pile. They won't even touch the corn when the acorns are there.

[LWC]

Blasphemy!

[Ætheling]

Shane!

Why are you trying to change nature? Your tree was born the way it was born and no amount of hormones are going to change that on the inside. #Transarbor

[Brute Killer]

Just put a couple dozen hogs in your yard. They will clean up acorns just fine.

[Ætheling]

This is what hormones will do to your tree!

[PapaBear]

Awesome. Didn't realize you're an arborist. What is a ballpark range of what it might cost me to just have somebody like you do the spraying for me? I have 3 red oaks and 1 live oak.

I have just recently received my arborist certification and haven't gotten into spraying yet. I am mainly in the growing and planting aspect of trees. How big are these trees? This will determine how much chemical and labor is needed to get the job done.

[PapaBear]

Shane!

Why are you trying to change nature? Your tree was born the way it was born and no amount of hormones are going to change that on the inside. #Transarbor

This is great!

[Shane]

I have just recently received my arborist certification and haven't gotten into spraying yet. I am mainly in the growing and planting aspect of trees. How big are these trees? This will determine how much chemical and labor is needed to get the job done.

Two of the red oaks are pretty large. Maybe 25-30' tall and same diameter across from edge to edge of the canopy. The other red oak and the live oak are about 20' tall and maybe 15-20' across the canopy.