This guide is for participants in Black Squirrel Farms' 2026 Oak/Hickory Collection Pilot. Acorns accepted through the pilot must come from a registered source tree. If you haven't registered your tree yet, start there, or continue using this guide if you are in the process of registering a tree and need some help with species identification. 

WHAT KIND OF OAK IS YOUR TREE?

Acorn shape varies by oak species. 

Image credit: Archewild

The oak species in Michigan reasonably overlap the oaks in New York, so this Michigan Arbor Day alliance guide could help you identify your tree. Look carefully at the combination of leaf shape and nut shape. Red oak species have pointy leaf lobes. White oak species have rounded leaf lobes. Red and white oak acorns are handled a little differently so knowing if your oak is a red oak or a white oak matters. Red oak and white oak are groups of species; a pin oak is a red oak. A bur oak is a white oak. Non-intuitively, the black oak is a red oak. If you are a user of the iNaturalist app, this tool seems to work reasonably well for identifying oaks and can provide an answer that is probably right. The more pictures you provide iNaturalist, the better is works. 

You don't need to be fully confident about your oak tree species identification in order to register your tree; we'll help confirm the tree's identification based on the pictures you share. 

Register your tree here.

WHAT WE'LL PAY

For the 2026 pilot, we'll pay $150 per 100 lbs ($1.50/lb) for high-graded acorns collected from registered and pre-qualified oak trees.

A lot of acorns that fall from a tree aren't good, so we're asking collectors to make a reasonable effort to leave behind acorns that are obviously damaged, immature, empty, old or otherwise unlikely to be good seed. The most common problem is visible insect exit holes. 

We're not seeking perfection; we expect some bad acorns to make it into every collection. The $1.50/lb rate assumes that basic high-grading has been done. It's easy to use a nut roller to collect a lot of acorns that are mostly bad. A drop-off which is mostly bad acorns will be compensated at $100 per 100 lbs ($1.00/lb) instead of $1.50/lb, at our discretion, because we will end up having to put most of it in the woods. 

GATHER ACORNS WHENEVER GOOD QUALITY ACORNS ARE FALLING

The best time to harvest is during the main nutfall. For oaks, the main nutfall is spread out longer than the main nutfall for trees like black walnut or hickory. This is helpful because, unlike hickory, getting the timing right is a little easier and there is often an opportunity to keep gathering every few days for a few weeks, possibly prioritizing days after a storm or high winds. 

The best way to learn what good acorns from your tree look like is to pick up a few of the kind you think it makes sense to gather and cut or crush them. If those few that you crush are buggy, hold off on gathering. Wait a little while and try again. It may just be that you are too early - both early falling nuts and late falling nuts are known to have quality issues for many tree species. The image below is intended to guide food acorn gatherers but still useful to help figure out what good acorns look like:

Image credit: https://newenglandacorncooperative.com/how-to-tell-good-acorns-from-bad-acorns/

Another sign of a good acorn is that the cap either detached when the acorn fell or comes off easily. There's a high probability that if the cap is stuck tightly to the rest of the seed, the acorn isn't worth keeping. 

GATHERING ACORNS

If your tree is part of the 2026 pilot program, you should have received or picked up mesh collection bags pre-labeled with the name of your tree. You can gather the nuts however is easiest, but it can be helpful to put the mesh bag inside a 5-gallon bucket; the bags were sized to fit nicely inside one. For this program, we are trying to make sure that we know which trees grew the seed collected, so please only gather from trees that are registered as part of the 2026 program and don't intentionally combine nuts from different trees. 

Head out to your tree and start gathering! The nuts that we want are the nuts would show up as "good for eating"  on the image above. For this program, we are trying to make sure that we know exactly which trees grew the seed collected so please only gather from under trees which are part of the program. 

An oak can produce over 10,000 acorns per year! In some years, production might be almost nothing and some years it could be even higher. One reason that we are accepting registrations of oak trees that have few or no nuts this year is because next year might be a completely different situation. 

STORE OR DELIVER YOUR HARVEST

White oak and red oak need to be handled a little differently. Red oak is easier. If you are going to hang on to them for a few days or a couple weeks before dropping them off in order to keep collecting while nuts are falling, then once you are done gathering for the day, put the mesh bag somewhere cool and protected from drying out, with some air circulation, and safe from wildlife. Laying it on the cement floor in a basement works and so would putting them in a root cellar. Freezing makes acorns non-viable as seed. Refrigeration for a week or two is fine as long as the acorns don't freeze. If you choose to store acorns in a fridge, rather than just putting the mesh collection bag in the fridge, we recommend putting the mesh bag inside a tied trash bag or other, clean, sealed container. 

White oak acorns are more finicky. White oaks grow their tap root in the fall, soon after falling off the tree, so good white oak acorns may try to grow shortly after being gathered. Drying out or freezing will make the seed non-viable. Putting them in a cooler with a wet rag could work temporarily but they may try to grow during storage. If there is fridge space, using the fridge could be an option, taking into consideration that acorns tend to be buggy and so putting the mesh bag inside a tied trash bag or other, clean, sealed container is strongly suggested. 

We're happy to accept your gathered nuts anytime that you want to drop them off with us at Black Squirrel Farms, 590 NY 14, Penn Yan, NY. Mesh bags do not have to be full and we can provide additional bags and labels as needed. If you are transport-limited and cannot drop your collected nuts off, please contact us so that we can make some customized arrangement.