Planning — no site designated yet
Acorns to Oaks Initiative
Plant and establish 610 native California oaks across 21 acres of partner land, and care for them for three years.
Where this stands
Planning — revised operational plan (October 2026). The target is 21 cumulative acres, and 8–12 sites is the initial outreach target, but no site has been designated and no planting date is set. Written permission, establishment water and a named steward are required for each site before any tree goes in the ground.
About this project
Acorns to Oaks Initiative
Acorns to Oaks is CCE's largest plan: 610 native California oaks planted across 21 cumulative acres of partner land, and then looked after for three years until they are established rather than merely planted.
The hard part is not the planting day. It is the three years after it. So each participating site has to come with written permission, an approved species and placement plan, access, establishment water, and a named steward who will keep watering. We would rather recruit eight sites properly than twenty that fail.
Survival is measured, not assumed: 90% of the 610 at twelve months, 85% at twenty-four, and 80% at thirty-six. Every seedling is tracked from its supply source to its survival outcome, so CCE can report what actually lived.
The seedlings are supplied by an independent partner and reported disease- and mould-free. Watering resources and the tracking system still have to be arranged.
The work
What it actually takes
How it runs
- Recruit willing landowners and organizations for 21 cumulative acres
- Obtain written permission and an approved species-and-placement plan for each site
- Secure establishment water and a designated steward per site
- Verify botanical identification, provenance and plant-health records for every seedling
- Form four ten-person planting crews, each with a qualified crew chief
- Run a first planting pilot and adjust the productivity estimates from it
- Plant, protect, water, tag and record each tree
- Inspect and record survival at 12, 24 and 36 months
What is needed
What this project needs
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Landowners with 21 acres between them
The single thing the project is waiting on. Eight to twelve sites, each with written permission to plant.
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Planting crew member — 40 needed
Planting, protecting, watering, tagging and recording trees. Four teams of ten, over about eight field days at two per week.
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Stewardship volunteer — 24 needed
Watering and caring for planted oaks over three years. This is the role the survival targets depend on.
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Stewardship relief volunteer — 4 needed
Covering stewardship absences over the same three years.
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Nursery and inventory support — 4 needed
Seedling inventory and plant-health records before deployment.
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Distribution and transportation — 4 needed
Moving seedlings between sites and recording the transfers.
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Administrative and logistics support — 2 needed
Scheduling, records and logistics across the participating sites.
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Water and a tracking system
Establishment water at each site, and a system for recording every tree from source to survival.
The money
What is known about the cost
- Cash budget: not stated in the plan
- Seedlings supplied by an independent partner at no stated cost to CCE
- Watering resources and the tracking technology still have to be arranged
- Field capacity is estimated at about 80 trees a day across four crews, over roughly eight planting days
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