TOPANGA : Volunteers to Plant 1,000 Acorns in Park
Volunteers will plant about 1,000 acorns Sunday at Malibu Creek State Park in a joint reforestation effort by the Topanga-Las Virgenes Resource Conservation District and the Mountains Restoration Trust.
More than 50 volunteers will participate in the planting, said Jo Kitz, a program director for the nonprofit, Malibu-based Mountain Restoration Trust.
“We’re starting to see some trees come back in naturally, already,” she said. “We’d like to give the area a jump start.”
The acorns, she said, will be planted directly into the ground--instead of planting them in containers to be transplanted later, a common practice. Planting acorns directly, she said, allows root systems to take hold early, increasing the likelihood that the tree will survive.
The volunteers also will transplant several small oak trees that are being kept in one-gallon pots.
The planting, Kitz said, coincides with California Oak Day, a day set aside to honor the state’s oaks.
Conservation officials have noticed that oak trees all over the state are having difficulty reproducing, said Rosie Dagit, a conservation biologist for the conservation district. No one is sure why.
“I believe that in this part of the state the biggest reason is soil compaction and the introduction of non-native grasses when the Spanish came to California,” she said.
Another theory, she said, holds that nature’s reseeding process--through bird droppings, for example--could have been hampered for some reason. More recently, drought might have stymied the reproduction process of acorns.
A planting last year at the park was largely unsuccessful because there was little rain, Kitz said. Most of the acorns did not sprout.
“But this year, there has been more rain, so we would hope to have a survival rate of 90%,” she said.
Under a special program, people can have oak trees planted in their name for $25 to $200 at the Malibu Creek State Park, she said. Anyone who donates $200 will get their names inscribed on a plaque that will be housed in the park’s visitor center. Those seeking information should call (310) 456-5625.
