Too late to prune oak?

[Froggybear]

I’ve got a couple oaks around the house that need some limbs removed which I’ve been procrastinating to do. However, the weather has been unseasonably warm recently and we even have some ornamental cherries starting to bloom because of it. Therefor this has me concerned that maybe I missed my chance to cut on these oaks given the risk of oak wilt and such.

Is oak pruning season over in the mid-atlantic region?

 

[Shadowscape]

Apparently no one is willing to stick their neck out and give you an answer. That's a shame.
I can't, as I don't know the area, living in here in the frozen north. Here it is okay to prune oaks still. Sounds a bit sketchy there by your description of the weather.
Somebody from the Mid Atlantic region help this person out!
Here we go by the rule that if any of the trees show signs of budding out, pruning oak is a no go.

 

[Froggybear]

Thanks for your thoughts. It was almost 80F degrees on Thursday and we had snow flurries today. Absolutely bonkers.

I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I hadn’t seen some trees budding already. Which is crazy in itself.

I guess I’ll just play it safe and save the major cutting for next winter. I wonder tho, when do you cut oaks in climates that are warm year round?

 

[Shadowscape]

Thanks for your thoughts. It was almost 80F degrees on Thursday and we had snow flurries today. Absolutely bonkers.

I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I hadn’t seen some trees budding already. Which is crazy in itself.

I guess I’ll just play it safe and save the major cutting for next winter. I wonder tho, when do you cut oaks in climates that are warm year round?

Good question. I don't believe oak wilt has reached northern Minnesota yet, but it is getting close. Wisconsin is reporting cases now, and the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. We are not pruning oak in the summer now because it is so close. I don't know how far south it extends. We need some southerners to chime in.
Edit: It seems to be in Texas, so they ought to have a handle on it.

 

[ATH]

Quick search...This site says

Oak wilt high risk period: 231 - 2172 degree days (it tells you those #'s after you enter a lat/long).

That site will only let me go east to -82 longitude. I put in lat of 38 and long of -82 and it says that is past the safe pruning GDD.

 

[Rusticus]

In Texas, we have the rules not to prune oaks between February and June as it is the time when the nitidulid beetles and fungal mats are most likely to cross paths. We have those wild weather swings too, so in practice the likelihood for a new infection happens year round and has been observed/documented in the "safe" times; they're not really hard and fast rules. When dealing with the big dips in temperatures, we aim for the hottest or coldest days of the year...the ones when we really don't want to be working. The open cut is really only susceptible to infection for about 3 days, so if you can get a three day window of unpleasant weather...

 

[oldoakman]

Fall Line area of GA/AL does not seem to see a significant issue with Oak Wilt. .ost of our oaks are willow, Nuttall, overcup. Not many southern reds or white. This may be one of the good things about the Fall Line.