Relief and rescue of damaged oaks in nature

Oak trees, with an 84 million-year history, are distributed throughout the northern hemisphere. It plays a fundamental role in biodiversity conservation. Oak is one of the dominant elements of forests in the Zagros Mountains, so the presence and origin of other plants in this region depend on this genus. Various factors have led to the decreased quantity and quality of Zagros forests. Oak trees are usually moved from their place because of floods, landslides, and soil shedding in chips. These trees will wither and die in nature due to displacement from their beds. In this study, damaged oak stands were transferred to suitable places, and their establishment was investigated. Data were analyzed using a completely randomized design with five treatments and thirteen replications. The means of the treatments were compared by Duncan's multiple range test at the five percent probability level. Based on the variance analysis, there was a significant difference between the different treatments regarding the studied traits. According to mean comparisons, the highest values of all the desired traits, including survival percentage, leafing percentage, leaf size, and longitudinal growth of young stems, were related to oaks transferred in December and January. The oaks transferred in April showed the lowest survival, leafing, and longitudinal growth of young stems. Regarding leaf size traits, no significant differences existed between oaks transferred in March and April. Transfer of damaged oak stands to suitable places, damages to mother oak stands have been minimized, and we will not see the removal of 50-year-old trees from nature. This method can be used as a model for relief and rescuing damaged rootstocks and planting them in needed areas such as parks and botanical gardens.