About us
BalanoTrees is a tree nursery specialized on sweet acorn oaks. Our goal is to bring back the acorn as tree crop for human consumption.
Joan Montserrat
Graduated on Economics with both feet on the ground, oak grafter, returned from China and Go player.
Francesc Ribera
Graduated on Agroecology, ecological veggie farmer, arboriculturist, bass player and casteller (Human tower practitioner).
Where
BalanoTrees is based in La Nou de Gaià, a small town close to the sea in Catalonia, north east of Spain.
Our tree nursery is a 4 hectare farm where we have our plant production facilities and trial plantations.
If you are interested in visiting the nursery, you can contact us here.
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How to buy trees
This season (2024-2025) we have decided not to sell sweet acorn Oak trees. We want to focus on carrying out trial plantations and establishing fields for future scion harvesting. We do have available some Cork Oaks grafted onto truffle inoculated Holm Oaks for double production of cork and black truffles.
Around fall 2025 we will have sweet acorn oaks available. If you are interested on the Cork/Truffle trees or want to be included in the waiting list for sweet acorn Oaks, please contact us through: info@balanotrees.org
Our story
Our interest on sweet acorns started in 2014 as a result of conversations with old people that used to eat them in the past.
Shortly after we started looking for sweet acorn trees across de Iberian Peninsula and the Balearic islands. And, at the same time, we started researching on Holm oak grafting techniques.
It wasn’t till 2018 when, already convinced of the enormous potential of Holm oak as a nut tree crop, we set up the tree nursery.
In 2019 we started selling Holm oak plants grafted with sweet varieties.
Our mission
Agriculture is in need of big changes. Our food systems should be rooted in the territory, taking care of human needs without ruining the future.
Tree crops, with the adequate management practices, can feed us while providing a livelihood to farmers and, at the same time, contribute with many ecological services; carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat or soil erosion control just to name a few.
In a context of climate and ecological emergency, we are convinced that oaks and acorns — sometimes regarded as ‘the grain that grows on trees’ — will play an important role in the mission of adjusting agriculture towards less oil-dependant models.