I live north of most people, and acorns are ripe in october here. They are ready when they come loose from the cupula easy and they should be heavy and without any visible worm holes.

Varies by species, but typically, a few weeks before the leaves start turning for fall.

The best way to get "good" acorns...wait until fall, and when you see some start falling to the ground WITHOUT the cap (if they fall wtih the cap they're defective), they're mature. You can collect these for sure, and do a float test to get the good ones, but there's another way to get a higher percentage of good nuts - that works well for "open" grown trees, but not so much for trees in the woods, because the branches are usually too high.

Throw down a tarp on the ground under the tree. Gently knock the branches with a long pole if you can reach them - the ones that seperate from the cap easily are usually viable, and will drop on the tarp. This way, you can get fresh, good nuts before the squirrels and weevils do.

i pick them off the ground.. and forestall the issue ...

they can easily be found.. when i step on them .. lol ..

i am wondering what kind of pygmy oak you are thinking of harvesting from ... if you can reach them ...

even better.. if they sprout in spring.. i have the seedlings ...

ken

I do things the hard way, haha.

However if there are multiple oak species close together that are growing into each other, the tarp method can ensure you get the "right" acorns, unless you're pretty good at identifying oak acorns.

Agreed with ken. I'm not sure how easy/hard they are to transplant, but there's usually several hundred seedlings already growing under any oak tree right now. Why start one from an acorn, if you could just start one from a seedling?

In PEI, acorns are falling in Sept and October, depending on the individual tree. I just pick them off the ground, or gather up a squirrel's leavings, if there are so many acorns that the squirrel just eats a few bites from the blunt end and drops the rest. These partly eaten ones germinate as well as whole ones and solve the too tall tree problem. (Too tall to hit the branches and cause some to fall) Gathering off the ground works well, even a few weevils are not a big problem. Just discard the ones with obvious small holes. If you keep the acorns in a baggie of damp soil in the fridge, you can just pot them up as the roots come out. They can be grown like house plants till spring comes. Harden them off like tomatoes and plant them where you want them to grow. I use two litre milk jugs with the tops cut off and lots of holes punched in the bottom for drainage. These hold enough soil for good growth and fit on a windowsill till spring. You can raid your compost heap in the fall and bring in several buckets of soil to use as the acorns sprout. Sprout time is a bit variable, depending on how damp the soil in their storage baggie is, and the temperature of your fridge..January to April. The attached picture is chestnuts, but acorns are the same.