Oak Seedlings

unrecordings

I live on the edge of woodland here in Sheffield and constantly end up pulling oak seedlings dutifully delivered by jays & squirrels. In recent years I've been carefully digging them up to preserve the taproot and potting them up - usually just coiling the taproot into the bottom of the (small) pot.

Now it's time to put some in bigger pots

I'm looking at portable/potting options rather than putting them in the ground at this stage - I've got close to 30 of them (!)

I read somewhere last year that you should snip the taproot, but that doesn't sound right to me and I've lost the link to check the reasoning

Anyone have any hints or tips ?

theoretica

What do you want to happen to the seedlings in the long term? If you are looking towards bonsai you will snip the tap root. If you are looking at trees, you need to make sure it isn't so coiled it will strangle itself as the tree grows.

unrecordings

Thanks - yep repotting is to straighten out some of those taproots - the bonsai tip makes sense - I might look that up now I know the context and give it a try. In the longer term these are going in the ground but I want to give them the best start I can