Red oak is generally found on spodosols. The soils vary from clay to sand. It grows best on deep well drained sandy loams to silty loams, to clay loam soils. Red oak prefers lower and middle slopes with northerly or easterly aspects on soils with a thick A horizon. Growth is most common at altitudes less than 3,500 feet above sea-level.
Red oak is intermediate in shade tolerance.
Like white oak, newly planted red oak seedlings cannot compete with other vegetation after clearcutting on the better sites. The amount of red oak in the new stand will be proportional to the amount of advance regeneration of large, well-rooted seedlings before canopy removal, plus the amount of anticipated stump sprouts. The minimum number of first order lateral roots, greater than 1 mm in diameter, that an acceptable red oak seedling should have is five to seven. Larger 2-0 red oak seedlings can be difficult to plant with conventional machine tree planters. Requirements for an acceptable tree planting machine for red oak include a coulter near 36 inches in diameter and shoe width of 3 inches.