Red Oak Resource

The original forest found by the European settlers, when they first landed in the “New World” of North America, was mixed with hardwoods and softwoods throughout the eastern seaboard. Trees of every type were cut for colonization and later for agricultural and industrial development. All these forests today are now at least secondary growth, if not in their third complete rotation in some cases. There is almost no virgin forest, for what was not cut was eventually burned naturally or reduced by disease. But hardwoods are resilient and what came back were mixed hardwood forests with a wide variety of species, dominated by oaks and maples. More than 40% of the national hardwood resource is oak, of which red oak accounts for about 35%. In some areas it exceeds 50% of the forest.

Red oak, which is comprised of many subspecies, is a true Quercus with its natural habitat extending from Maine and New England in the north, all the way to the Gulf of Mexico in the south and as far east as Texas for some red oaks. It is one of the most widely distributed of all American hardwoods, but its natural characteristics vary greatly according to its location and subspecies.

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