Our (mostly red) oak trees had a huge mast year two years ago, but
last year and this year the acorns have been at more normal
production levels. Red oaks have a two year cycle for acorn
production - the flowers from this year are next year's acorns - so
it could be that 2018 will be another big year for acorns in our
woods.
Cones & other nuts do seem abundant wherever we look, but I assumed
it was because this has been the first year in several that we didn't
have an ill-timed cold snap or drought during a crucial part of the
growing season. On our property we had almost no walnuts last year
& I am certain that was b/c of a bad cold snap just after pollination
that seemed to kill most of the tiny fruit, followed by an extended
period without rain later in the growing season. There have been a
couple of cold/warm/cold/warm periods in early spring during the past
five years and several kinds of fruit and nut trees were affected.
Perhaps the trees have energy on hand from those years when they
couldn't develop fruit, and can pour that energy into extra
production this year?
While cold snaps background:rgb(228,228,228);">From: Betsy Darlington
To:"Marc Devokaitis"
Cc:"Barbara B. Eden" , "CAYUGABIRDS-L"
Sent:Wed, 25 Oct 2017 12:47:44 -0400
Subject:Re: [cayugabirds-l] Where are all my feeder birds
I wonder if all these trees are putting out "stress cones/seeds,"
caused by the accelerating warming. Or do they just like being so
warm?Betsy
On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Marc Devokaitis wrote:
Hi All,
Re-opening this thread--I thought I'd share with the list a comment
from Donald Leopold, Chair of the Department of Environmental and
Forest Biology at SUNY-ESF (I was asking him about something else,
but this came up.)
"Not only are conifers producing an extraordinary abundance of cones
but I have never seen such an abundance of walnuts, hickories, oak
acorns, sugar maple and white ash samaras, and other tree fruits and
seeds. Interestingly, I’ve seen this above average production
across the Northeast."
Hopefully this goes a long way to explaining the increase in
decreases this year.
Marc Devokaitis
On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 12:46 PM, Barbara B. Eden wrote:
For the past 2 months the resident birds that I daily feed have
dropped in population This is the first time this has happened and
even those pesky squirrels have left I live in Cayuga Heights and my
backyard is a bird friendly habitat
Any thoughts would be appreciated
Thanks
Barbara Eden
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