Lexington, Ky.— Sybil Gotsch has spent her career climbing trees in some of the world’s most remote rainforests — from Costa Rica to Brazil to Mexico. Now, one of the hardest questions in her career is rooted in Eastern Kentucky.
It’s been coined “the white oak problem” and has been worrying foresters, ecologists and bourbon distillers for years. White oak seedlings sprout just fine on the forest floor. Mature white oaks tower overhead in the canopy. But the middle-sized trees — the teenagers of the oak world — keep disappearing. Something is preventing young oaks from growing, and nobody is quite sure what.
“The stakes go well beyond the forest,” said Gotsch, an associate professor of forest ecophysiology in the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources (FNR) in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. “White oak acorns are a food source for deer and turkey, and the trunks provide roosts for bats. The wood is also essential for furniture, flooring and cabinetry.”…