How can you tell the age of a (live) oak tree?

You're not going to be able to efficiently core a 7 foot diameter tree, without busting a drill-bit (because of the density of the wood). The best way to age it is to look up the deed history to the property on which the tree is positioned on. Also while you are doing this, look up the timber harvesting history as well. If the tree was left alone during harvesting operations, and every tree was cleared around it...then horizontal growth would increase rapidly. This could easily fool anyone into over-guessing the actual age of the tree.

If the oak was 1 to 2 thousand years old, then the tree would be in a serious state of decline with limited amount of foliate on it. Oaks are not a species which would be able to survive that long of a time, and still maintain a healthy and full crown.

Overall though, you will not be able to tell the full-age of the tree until it has died and you can cut it down and count the growth rings.

The only reliable way to tell the age is to count the growth rings. You can do this by using a special tool to take a core of the main stem, or if the tree were cut down, you could count the rings in the stump.

Each growth ring is made up of two parts, a light ring and a dark ring. This relates to summer and winter. The light ring is always wider, because the tree is growing much faster than in the late fall and winter.

Coring the tree could leave it susceptible to disease, but done properly, it would probably be fine.

Do not cut down the tree, because if it's that old, it does not deserve to die over some stupid bet.

Anyway, I would say it is much more likely that the tree is closer to 500 years old than 2000 years.

While oak trees can live for a long time, they usually don't make it more than a few hundred years. The only cases of trees older 1000 years I've heard of were trees that grew up on cliffs and in very remote areas with poor soils. These trees seldom get bigger than a few inches in diameter.

This is because a large tree like that will usually die of natural causes before it gets too old (i.e. wind, lightning, bugs, man, etc...) Where as a very small slow growing tree in a remote area has a better chance of avoiding such a dimise.

Oak Tree Age

If the tree is in decline then the tree will be anywhere between 500 to 800 years old. It's a little difficult to tell. Tree will grow to a size and not to an age, but 'Stags horning' is a result of the tree reaching a maximum size and no longer having the vigour to sustain its size, so compartmentalises the top part of the tree so that it no longer has to maintain it. (Think of it as streamlining a business). This will happen as the tree becomes over mature 700 years or so.

An arborist or forester with the proper boring bar can take a core sample and count the rings. You don't have to go seven feet and it won't hurt the tree. Depending on the species of Oak they can live to be twelve hundred to two thousand years old, so your farmer friend may know what he is talking about. There is a pine tree in Norway that has been confirmed to be at least nine thousand years old.

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RE:

How can you tell the age of a (live) oak tree?

I've seen an amazing stag's head oak tree at least 7 foot in diameter. I have a feeling it's about 500 years old. I said this to a farmer and he laughed in my face and said it was 1 to 2 thousand years old but I can't believe that. So who's right?

Here in Britain we have more of these "veteran trees" than almost anywhere else in Europe. Can you check that it has a tree preservation order on it - trees like the one you describe are very important for many reasons.

Dendrochronologists - people who attempt to put a date on trees - are able to make a boring into a tree trunk to remove a narrow cylinder of wood. The are then able to count the rings. If your tree is historically important that is something which could be done.

In fact very few oaks date beyond 500 years so you are more likely to be right.

There really is no way to tell on a live tree. The rings can be used to determine the age after you cut it down, but when you do you will notice that the rings are different thicknesses. This is due to the weather conditions for that particular year. A moist, cool year will create a thicker ring. Unless you plan to cut the tree down, I'd take the farmer's word for it.

hi

dont cut it down. ha ha. no just measure the circumference, and every 25mm equals one year. but it could be older than 500 years, if the soil is bad, or it very windy there, or if the tree has been hit by lightning, and so is smaller than it might have been.

but usually tree counters would measure out the circumference (around the tree) and then divide by 25mm to get the age.

an oal tree can easily live to be 500 years old, and this will mean that it can handle 500 different pests and diseases. this is why the tree is so prized.

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