No acorns this year -- random strangeness or climatic event?

[nashville_brook]

Acorn watchers wonder what happened to crop
Starving and skinny squirrels offer clues to disappearance, botanists say

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27977375/

By Brigid Schulte
updated 7:04 a.m. ET, Sun., Nov. 30, 2008

The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist. Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns. None. No hickory nuts, either. Then he went out to look for himself. He came up with nothing. Nothing crunched underfoot. Nothing hit him on the head.

Then calls started coming in about crazy squirrels. Starving, skinny squirrels eating garbage, inhaling bird feed, greedily demolishing pumpkins. Squirrels boldly scampering into the road. And a lot more calls about squirrel roadkill. But Simmons really got spooked when he was teaching a class on identifying oak and hickory trees late last month. For 2 1/2 miles, Simmons and other naturalists hiked through Northern Virginia oak and hickory forests. They sifted through leaves on the ground, dug in the dirt and peered into the tree canopies. Nothing.

"I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe," he said. "But this is not just not a good year for oaks. It's a zero year. There's zero production. I've never seen anything like this before." The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather, Simmons thought. But he hoped it wasn't a climatic event. "Let's hope it's not something ghastly going on with the natural world."

To find out, Simmons and Arlington naturalists began calling around. A naturalist in Maryland found no acorns on an Audubon nature walk there. Ditto for Fairfax, Falls Church, Charles County, even as far away as Pennsylvania. There are no acorns falling from the majestic oaks in Arlington National Cemetery.

"Once I started paying attention, I couldn't find any acorns anywhere. Not from white oaks, red oaks or black oaks, and this was supposed to be their big year," said Greg Zell, a naturalist at Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington. "We're talking zero. Not a single acorn. It's really bizarre."

[patrice]

1. I will look at the mighty Oaks in my son's yard. nt

[Sedona]

2. I was at Montecello last month and there are plenty of acorns there

I even picked up a few to try to plant at home.
:shrug:

[pitohui]

5. so you're saying the media just basically made up the story

i'm shocked, shocked, i tell you, to learn the media would invent a silly season story just to capture the public imagination

[nashville_brook]

8. that's good to hear -- i'm in central Fl and there's nada, zip, zero

we actually trimmed up a giant oak in the front yard yesterday and it didn't occur to me that we weren't crunching acorns under foot. after i read this i went out to check and there's nothing around our oaks or the nextdoor neighbors.

[The Backlash Cometh]

58. It's funny you should mention this,

Because I just noticed them for the first time this week and thought it was late in the season. I also thought it was odd that there were so many squirrels out at this time of the year. My dog almost caught one which must have been so eager to get a nut that it had ventured too far from a tree. If he hadn't been on a leash he would have succeeded. What surprised me about the squirrel, is that we both walked up on it and you would think that with me in tow, the squirrel had plenty of warning.

[denese]

61. My parents have lots of them in Central Florida

Altamonte Springs. I was crushing them underfoot last weekend.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Acorns and hickory nuts all over our neighborhood in SW Ala.

[Lorien]

4. No acorns here in Florida for the second year in a row

it's pretty scary; no acorns = no trees = less oxygen and swifter climate change. This is a HUGE story, but few will pay any attention to it. The natural world matters; without it, we'll go extinct along with every other species. Why is this so hard to understand? Why do people thing that we humans are Gods; that with our technology we no longer need nature? No trees, no bees, no humanity-it really is that simple.

[nashville_brook]

12. i didn't notice it last year -- it's funny how you can miss something that's *not* there.

[pitohui]

17. the acorn is not the real issue here in my humble view and it's nothing to do w. bees either

let's say the deciduous tree in your neighborhood puts out plenty of acorns, as the oak tree overlooking my house used to do, it put out thousands

it matters not, because there is no habitat for any of them to grow, so they all got eaten (by the squirrels etc) ea. year and the rest of them had to be swept away

if one did find an oak tree sprouting somewhere, one has to remove it, these trees get big, and if you wait too long, it can cost a great deal of money to remove, but you can't have the roots growing into the foundation of your house, you don't want the tree itself falling on your house on (especially not with you in it, been there done there)

eventually the tree was toppled in a storm, leaving behind no legacy except for my fear of falling trees in my house -- despite making TONS of acorns all of the oaks are now gone from my street because the old ones were destroyed by the storms while the young ones had nowhere to grow up

you see the problem here? there is no place for new trees to grow until the old ones have already been removed by age, storm, etc.

THAT'S the problem, the tree can make all the acorns it likes, but there is no more habitat to grow baby trees, they get weeded out anyway, so the ultimate end point is extinction for many of these oak species whether or not they make any acorns

the acorns ain't the problem, habitat loss is the problem

here i will offer a speculation about what COULD be happening in some areas: trees communicate by chemical signal, for instance, in the cloud forest, i was shown trees that sent a chemical signal "army ants chewing our leaves," and they all started producing nasty tasting stuff in their leaves -- so the army ants had to walk further to find a tree that wasn't "in the know" (note-- the cloud forest trees were able to communicate across many species, which becomes interesting, because many species of oaks seem to be participating in this refusal to produce the acorns -- we can't assume the oaks don't "talk" across species)

here's my theory -- what is to say that oak trees in our temperate regions don't share a chemical language? maybe some of the oak trees in over built areas like d.c. and parts of florida, are saying, fuck this, we've had enough, why put good energy into producing acorns just to feed some frickin' squirrels when we never get any babies out of this for ourselves?

oak trees do not produce acorns because they give a rat's ass about squirrels, the acorns are their young, and if there is no place to raise their young...

totally whack? oh probably, but it's what i'm thinking...

[nashville_brook]

22. i really like your theory. and what you say about habitat.

the thing that hit me about this story is not that we'd lose all our trees, rather that this could be an indication of something else.

the article says that stressed oaks tend to overproduce acorns. the last years we had acorns we had TONS! and the drop went on for months (it seemed). so, maybe the environment is TOO RICH. maybe too much CO2. just spitballing. thank you for the very interesting response.

[Egalitariat]

56. We had acorns all over Ocala, FL last year. I haven't looked this year, but I think

they fell much later than early December.

[Botany]

6. Some years "mast crops" fail

My guess is a late freeze, drought, or a wind storm might be the problem.

[Ohio Joe]

7. There are acorns here in Columbus

Weird though and I suspect not good at all.

[MazeRat7]

9. Lots of acorns from the Live Oaks here in South Texas n/t

[GregD]

10. None here in Nor Cal either

That story is about the east coast, and refers to Kansas as well.

We live in CA, an hour south of the OR border. Our land is literally covered with oak trees and in the past few years tehre have certainly been variations in the amount of acorns that fell. A couple years ago it was literally "pop, pop, pop" as one drove up the driveway and crushed the many acorns that were lying there.

Not this year. I have seen maybe one or two? Compared to recent years when raking the acrons from the lawn was a huge effort, and now there are virtually none at all, this is a remarkable change.

Anyone else?

[nashville_brook]

18. the story cites NY, parts of New England, Maryland and parts of Kansas -- none in Cent FL

according to a quick looksee. so, maybe not a widespread climatic event -- rather an anomalous regional thing? perhaps a blight?

[calikid]

29. Lots here in the Sacramento Valley

For the second year in a row there's been a good crop here in Nothern CA Sacramento Valley.

[Retrograde]

39. but lots of them here south of San Francisco

more than last year. And lots of big, fat fur-coated rodents. Want some?

Now if the rains would only get serious...

[bluesmail]

50. I'm also in Northern California. Mendocino County. I just went

outside to see if I had any acorns. I don't. I don't remember hearing them fall on my car as I drive up my road. I don't remember feeling them under my feet. I would guess cyclical but that's never happened before to my knowledge. Ever.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. Scads of acorns in my Raleigh yard. Anyone want some?

[GentryDixon]

28. Lots of acorns & hickory nuts at our place in Harnett County.

The pecan yield around the area is also much larger than years past.

[Lex]

33. My yard in Durham County is full of acorns.

And big fat squirrels too.

[zazen]

45. and mine took root before I got to them; 4,500 baby oak trees come March

It's so cool to pull one up to show to your child--life pushing it's way through that little acorn (before I yank it screeching from the ground).

The old wisdom is that lots of acorns in Fall mean snow in winter. This was only anecdotally confirmed for us in January 2000, when we had a literal blizzard that shut down the Triangle for two weeks (and schools for three.) The preceding Fall (1999) I remember reading an N&O article about the dozens of bat-a-bat-bat-a-POP sounds on our roofs all throughout the day. Never saw so many acorns in my life. It was a common point of discussion among friends and coworkers. This year is like that. And the Farmers Almanac is predicting snow around Christmas.

[Atman]

13. In CT, ours fell early this year. Tons of 'em.

Couldn't sit out on the deck without a hard hat. Interest phenomenon, but Mother Nature is a fickle biotch. Sorry for the starving squirrels. But as the article points out, they seem pretty resourceful at finding food. They'll be back next year.

.

[Kali]

14. we had acorns this year

it's been a few years and fairly normal to mis a year or so around here
Winter/spring of 2005/6 was really bad, we lost a bunch of trees.

Oh and our oaks are scrub oak and the acorns are about the size of a shelled peanut.

[tuckessee]

15. Sixty miles north of Nashville there's an abundant crop of acorns.

Both white and black oaks. Burr & chestnut oaks were particularily plentiful.

Not too many hickories. No beech nuts, but that's not unusual since beech don't produce annually.

Persimmon crop was light to average but decent. Wild cherries everywhere.

Often these crops are dependent on such things as late frosts. Last year we a zero acorns due to a severe late frost.

[PearliePoo2]

16. I have a little Beech nut tree I planted about 7 years ago.

Right from the start, it has always been loaded with nuts.
Not this year...not a one.
Otherwise,it looks completely healthy, vigorous and full leafed. :shrug:
:scared:

[Whoa_Nelly]

19. Acorn production and off years article (it does happen)

http://www.dailypress.com/features/home/garden/dp-garden-qa102406,1,7373510.story

Oaks go in a two- to three-year cycle depending on species, says Virginia forester Rob Farrell.

Red oaks and white oaks typically alternate heavy years. This is a big year for white oaks.

Acorn production varies for many reasons, according to other tree experts. It takes a lot of an oak's energy and food to produce acorns, so a tree's health, vitality and resources can impact numbers.

In addition, a late spring frost can blight flowers, which prevents acorn development. Drought and insects also play important roles.

An oak's age also relates to acorn production, which begins about the time a tree is 20 years old and increases as the tree ages and its canopy (top foliage) reaches a larger span.

[amitten]

26. Yes, but that does not explain ZERO acorn production. n/t

[doodadem]

20. As always, tons of them here

in central Calif., lower Sierra Nevadas. Our ranch is covered in Live Oaks. My little pygmy goats are fat as pigs cleaning them up for me, so the horses don't eat them and founder.

[GrpCaptMandrake]

21. Choice 3:

Cyclical fluctuation

As a hunter or hiker, one sees the rising and falling cycle of the nut mast in the woods every year. Some years heavy, some years thin, some years non-existent.

[Nictuku]

23. Plenty in SF Bay Area

I live just north of San Francisco and the oak in my backyard has dropped lots of acorns.

One odd thing though, I am now seeing some red squirrels, where I have only seen gray squirrels in the past.

Also, in Napa Ca, at my moms place, there are tons of oaks, and there seems to be plenty of acorns from the Live Oak trees. Not sure about the other ones, but I'll check it next time I'm up there.

[ThomWV]

24. I'm in West Virginia, 150 miles west and 50 miles north of the area they mention

And we have all sorts of nuts from many different sorts of trees. In fact the fall my wife and I collected walnuts and (you won't beleive this) chestnuts from a park nearby to plant here on our place. I have spent a lot of time in the woods getting our winter firewood in and I've seen many acorns. I have a preference for burning White Oak so I've seen lots there and we've also cut a good bit of Red Oak and seen them there too.

So this may be true of north/central Virginia but it doesn't hold true just to the west and slightly north. Of course we are on the other side of the mountains and that may make a difference.

[nashville_brook]

27. wow -- your neck of the woods sounds lovely!

when i lived in east tenn we used to collect pecans and walnuts -- just for the hell of it. usually put them back out for the squirrels.

[nashville_brook]

25. Acorn Shortage Could Have Negative Impacts in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Area.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5553/is_200310/ai_n21947153

By David Sneed, The Tribune, San Luis Obispo, Calif. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Oct. 26--Cool and rainy weather last spring has caused a near complete failure of the fall acorn crop on the Central Coast.

Although the dearth of acorns will have little impact on people, it could make it more difficult for wildlife -- such as bears, deer, pigs and squirrels -- to survive the winter, and could cause fewer young animals to be born next year, said Walt Koenig, a researcher with the University of California's Hastings Natural History Reservation near Carmel.

[LiberalEsto]

30. Last year we had a huge surplus of acorns

I live in Rockville, Maryland, not too far from Arlington County. Last year we were literally rolling in acorns. This year I haven't noticed them particularly.

[stuntcat]

59. YES!

I'm sure little changes in temperature make a big difference and all but there are clearly cycles happening too! I'm in Arlington, and we don't have many this year but last year we had SO MANY that it was hard to walk in our back yard, it was like trying to walk across nothing but marbles.
I do all our yardwork by myself and it was the worst ever, I spent SO much time just trying to clean it up.
And I remember, back then, hearing somewhere that it was a cycle the trees go through sometimes, there was a little article about it in the paper too.. so I figured this year was just part of that.
I hope it doesn't starve the squirrels, I feed them a little every day anyway.

[FarCenter]

31. Hunter-gatherers suffer wide economic variations year-to-year

Squirrels and acorns are like hunter-gatherers in that their prospects for survival versus starvation vary widely in any given year.

With farming villages, there is more control, especially if the population is small enough to produce a significant surplus in nomal years.

City economics are more stable still, since a city can control militarily the adjacent agricultural and mining resources and weather natural variations better still. However, cities do collapse due to invasion, exhaustion of the farmland, climate change, exhaustion of mines, etc.

As the scale of economic systems has increased to the national and finally to the global level, man has been able to level variations in economic performance from year to year. This is mainly done by smoothing out things that can be easily smoothed, and postponing the more painful adjustments.

So, instead of loosing our nuts every few years, we get major economic catastrophes every few decades.

[Midlodemocrat]

32. Tons here. The 'country folk' are predicting a harsh winter.

[ThomWV]

34. To be honest about it we're already seeing more winter than we normally get

It has been snowing here on and off for two weeks. On Thanksgiving day there was half a foot on the ground. We normally see a dusting or two on the ground by now but not much more than that. Actually its not all that common to see snow on the ground on Christmas here, but of course January and February make up for it. So as I see it this year has already begun colder and wetter than normal, but we had a very dry summer and the water is welcome.

[City Lights]

35. We have a big, beautiful oak in our yard...no acorns this year.

We're in northern IL. The oak has looked sickly the last few years and we're having it treated by a tree expert.

[nashville_brook]

43. maybe ask your tree expert if this is something s/he's familiar with.

[Longhorn]

36. We've never had more acorns here in Central Texas.

We've been at this house for nearly 13 years. We have dozens of oaks and are constantly sweeping up the acorns and cleaning them out of our pool. We've had a drought this year and wondered if that had something to do with it. :shrug:

[IndyOp]

37. It looks like there is variation in what is happening across the country -

and I "recommended" this because we all need to be paying attention, we need to be more in touch with natural cycles of boom and bust in order to be more aware when we see disruption of those cycles.

[nashville_brook]

the article mentions that overproduction of acorns is common when trees are stressed,

so, both the overabundance and under-abundance should be noted. we had overabundance a couple of years ago -- it was nuts i tell ya :)

[IndyOp]

51. Nuts!?!? Argh! You get the official "Bad Pun Of The Day Award"...

:hi:

[BREMPRO]

38. up here in Maine, more acorns than ever....never seen so many in my life

sounds like conditions were best up north and poor down south. We also had one of the best berry seasons in decades. what does that mean?

[Fly by night]

40. Here in middle Tennessee, we have an abundant mast crop this year.

Arlington's problem may be a function of a late frost and/or drought conditions. We had both last year and had almost no mast. Sometimes there is fluctuation in the mast for other reasons also.

This year, everything on my farm was productive. The persimmon trees are groaning with fruit, the black walnuts outdid themselves and even my (untended) muscadine grape vines produced abundant fruit. There are acorns and hickory nuts everywhere. Ironically, with the massive deer die-off last year, there are fewer critters in the woods to enjoy this bounty.

[nashville_brook]

44. your place sounds wonderful. i wasn't aware of the deer die-off -- was it drought-related?

[Fly by night]

52. Die-off was due to epizootic hemorrhagic disease -- killed about 90% of deer here

EHD is transmitted by deer ticks and through water. The drought probably concentrated the number of places that deer could drink, which likely helped the disease spread.

The die-off was horrendous. It smelled like a war zone here for three months. There were so many dead deer here that even the buzzards couldn't keep up with all the carcasses.

Fortunately, the deer who survived the epidemic are granted immunity from that disease thereafter. But the woods are much emptier this year.

[Ghost in the Machine]

60. The deer herd has rebounded well here in East Tenn

The deer harvest in Southeast Tennessee seems to have rebounded from a poor 2007.

Chattanoogan.com Outdoors has been monitoring deer harvests in the 10 Southeast Tennessee counties, including Bledsoe, Bradley, Grundy, Hamilton, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Polk, Rhea and Sequatchie.

During all the deer hunts held up until Nov., 10 ... the end of the most recent muzzleloader season ... hunters in those ten copunties have taken a total of 6,273 deer.

DEER HARVEST COMPARISON
COUNTY... 2008 ... 2007 ... 2006

-- Bledsoe ... 467 ... 493 ... 487

-- Bradley ... 516 ... 429 ... 460

-- Grundy ... ..453 ... 535 ...518

-- Hamilton ... 944 ... 689 ... 812

-- Marion ... 620 ... 633 ... 613

-- McMinn ... 791 ... 841 ... 1036

-- Meigs ... 1077 ... 862 ... 864 (my county)

-- Polk ... 40 ... 23 ... 28

-- Rhea ... 1027 ... 790 ... 1092

-- Sequatchie ... 338 ... 337 ... 407

TOTAL ... 6273 ... 5632 ... 6317

http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_139036.asp

Meigs County is the 4th smallest county in the state, yet we have the highest harvest rate. I've seen some big deer, and hogs, this year. I've also got an over-abundance of acorns on my property. Some of the branches are literally hanging low, heavy with acorns. I was out in my woods on Thanksgiving day & the day after and saw plenty of walnuts and hickory nuys, too.... the deer and turkeys are thick here...

Good to see you posting, my friend....

Peace!

Ghost

[electron_blue]

41. Yes, here, too. I waited for them to fall and they never did. I usually have to

sweep my driveway clean of them and could easily fill 1 or 2 big lawn & leaf bags with them. They crowd out the grass on my yard. I knew they were "late" in Sep/Oct and then I forgot about them. This is interesting.

[nashville_brook]

42. where are you?

[electron_blue]

48. Minnesota

[eppur_se_muova]

46. Must be local. Loads of acorns, hickories, walnuts, chestnuts here in MD. nt

[reggie the dog]

47. the oak trees here in France

have plenty of acorns this year, at least here in the south of France. We have lots of acorns. I wonder what is going on in the USA? Has Monsanto been working on oaks?

[Enthusiast]

66. Do Cork Oaks bear acorns?

I thought you might know, living in Europe.

[spinbaby]

49. Just a late frost

Common problem with fruit trees--if there's a late frost, you can lose an entire crop. Probably a hard frost hit just as the oaks were busy setting this year's acorns.

[4_TN_TITANS]

53. Tons of pecans from my trees in Mid-TN

the squirrels are giving them two thumbs up!

[Terran]

54. tons of 'em here in mid-MO, and all other seed-bearing trees too

We didn't have any *last* year, and I chalked that up to the drought we had most of the summer. But it rained its ass off all summer this year, and so we were inundated with acorns, walnuts, carob pods, you name it, it blanketed my yard this fall.

[SammyWinstonJack]

55. Lots of them in my yard and the squirrels are fat from eating them.

[Obamanaut]

57. Acorns aplenty, and fat squirrels, in my yard in north Fl. nt

[RB TexLa]

62. They can come get all they want out of my yard

[JHB]

63. I blame ACORN.

They used them to steal the election!

(/freeper imitation)

:evilgrin:

[Enthusiast]

64. Acorn crop heavy here in S.E. Ohio.

The deer are fat.

[LibertyLover]

65. Our oak trees produced acorns

this year. We're in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. My 6 year old kept dragging them in for me to look at. Our yard squirrels are huge this year. Nice and fat and slow, just the way my whippets like them.