Interspersing cork oak trees with animals and crops can boost production and biodiversity, but also build soil, control erosion, retain water, combat desertification and sequester carbon, Pinto ...

Cork grows as a thick protective layer of outer bark, much thicker in the cork oak than in any other tree. Strange as it is to see a stripped cork oak with its lower 12 or 15 feet of dark inner ...

Cal Poly hosted a demonstration of a rare harvest of a cork oak tree, which grows on the San Luis Obispo campus, on Tuesday, May 28, 2024. The inside of the cork bark is brightly colored and cool ...

Lorenzo Zandri Cork—which is harvested from the thick, spongy bark of the cork oak tree—is now the main protagonist in the Cork House, as cork panels cover many of the walls both inside and out.

On May 30, 2024, under the shade of the UC Davis Arboretum’s 80-plus-year-old cork oak grove, a rarely seen exhibition of cork harvesting took place. This traditional practice, unfamiliar to most ...

Cork comes from the bark of a cork oak tree, which can be harvested every seven years. “The trees are climate change resistant as they need little water, and can resist fires pretty well ...

The Davis campus is filled with an assortment of oak trees including 532 cork oaks. "You won't find another tree with a texture quite like this," Griswold said while pointing at a large cork oak.

Yes! Cork oak trees fully regrow their bark every decade or so. Harvesting cork is not a simple or easy process, however. Cork trees usually don’t produce the material until their 25th birthday.

The cork oak prefers acidic soils, and can be found in open woodlands and on hills and lower slopes at altitudes of 1,000 to 3,200 feet, especially in Portugal and Spain.

But natural cork is environmentally friendly, and the cork oak forests are worth preserving. The oak tree is an unusual tree. You can use it, “harvest” it, without cutting it down.