VALUE AND USE
SPECIES: Quercus grisea | Gray Oak 



WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE : 
The hard, heavy wood of gray oak has little commercial value.  It is
used as fence posts and firewood [17,31,60].  Large-sized gray oak are
sometimes used for furniture [31].


IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE : 
Gray oak is seldom used by cattle or sheep, but other livestock and
wildlife browse gray oak leaves [17,29,60].  In a feeding study in New
Mexico, gray oak ingestion adversely affected angora goat nutritional
status by significantly (P<0.05) reducing forage intake, digestibility,
and nitrogen retention [29].  Gray oak is valuable spring browse for
pronghorn [8].  Its leaves are highly utilized by elk, white-tailed
deer, and mule deer [54].  Squirrels, rodents, Arizona porcupine,
Merriam's turkeys, thick-billed parrots, Viosca's pigeons, and other
birds consume gray oak acorns [17,53,59,60].

In Upper Dog Canyon of the Guadalupe Mountains in Texas and New Mexico,
where gray oak occurred in a bigtooth maple community, 42 breeding bird
species were recorded over a 3-year period [45].


PALATABILITY : 
Gray oak is unpalatable to cattle and sheep and has fair palatability
for pronghorn [8,29]. 


NUTRITIONAL VALUE : 
Gray oak has a lower digestibility than alfalfa.  In one study, gray oak
leaves and stems had 8 percent crude protein and 38 percent in vivo
digestibility.  It had 1.7 percent total nitrogen and 35.1 percent acid
detergent fiber [29].  In New Mexico, the phosphorus levels of the
current growth were at favorable levels for elk and mule deer during
spring.  Current growth digestibility over the year ranged from 51
percent in winter to 39 percent in the fall; protein was 11 percent in
the spring and 7 to 8 percent for the rest of the year [54].


COVER VALUE : 
The low shrubby growth form of gray oak provides good cover for jack
rabbits, cottontails, encinal mice, gray fox, and racoon [13].


VALUE FOR REHABILITATION OF DISTURBED SITES : 
NO-ENTRY


OTHER USES AND VALUES : 
Although no direct reference to gray oak acorn consumption by humans was
found in the literature, gray oak belongs to the white oak subgenus
(Lepidobalanus).  Edible acorns are a characteristic of the group [32].


MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS : 
Gray oak often occurs on sites of poor quality for timber production [20].

Equations have been developed to estimate gray oak volume and biomass as
measures of current production and utilization [10,37].

In the southwestern United States, herbicides and mechanical methods
have been used with good grazing practices to control woody plants such
as gray oak [26].  Angora goats are not effective in controlling gray
oak [29].

Gray oak appeared to decrease under grazing in an evergreen woodland in
Texas.  The importance value of gray oak on plots protected from grazing
from 1946 to 1962 in livestock grazed plots was 133; the importance
value on grazed plots was 83 [23].

Converted pinyon-juniper woodlands provide grasslands or enhance
watersheds.  These large scale clearings of pinyon-juniper woodlands
reduce gray oak populations [30,54].

Related categories for Species: Quercus grisea | Gray Oak