These acorns may not look like much, but they play a huge role in sustaining the ecosystem on our farm—feeding both our domesticated animals and the wildlife that we share the land with.
We’ve been lucky enough to gather aerial maps of the property going all the way back to the 1930s, and the Bur Oaks standing here today were already growing back then. Our best guess is that many of them are around 150 years old, quietly shaping this landscape long before any of us arrived.
In Iowa, native oak species are considered keystone species—meaning the health of the entire ecosystem depends on them. If oaks disappeared, countless other plant, insect, and animal species would decline with them… possibly even humans. That’s how foundational they are.
While oaks don’t offer nectar to pollinators (they’re wind-pollinated), they support at least 275 species of moths and butterflies. Their caterpillars rely on oak leaves for food before metamorphosis—an essential step in the life cycle of many species.
Those caterpillars, in turn, become a major food source for nesting birds. Most parent birds feed their young only live insects, so without oaks, many bird populations would struggle to survive.
Even the shade cast by oak trees helps decide what plant communities can grow beneath them.
• When oaks are spaced farther apart, allowing sunlight to reach the ground, the area forms an oak savanna—one of the most diverse ecosystems in the Midwest, full of both sun-loving and shade-tolerant plants.
• When oaks grow closer together and mix with hickories, cherries, and other tree species, the landscape becomes an oak woodland, home to spring ephemerals and plants that thrive in deeper shade.
We raise our pigs in the shade of the oak trees scattered across the farm. In mast years—when the trees produce an abundance of acorns—we even time the finishing of our pigs so they can forage on those acorns. It not only honors a natural, time-tested relationship between livestock and the land, but it also enriches the quality and flavor of the pork.
During the cold, snowy winter months, the local deer herd gathers beneath the oaks to dig for fallen acorns. They’re not the only ones who depend on this food source. Squirrels, mice, raccoons, opossums, and wild turkeys, all rely on acorns for energy and fat reserves. Acorns can make the difference between survival and hardship for many of these mammals.
In so many ways, the oaks on our farm are more than just trees. They’re providers, shelters, and architects of the ecosystem—quietly supporting life around them every single day.