ACORNS

[Freckles]

Just finished raking and bagging almost 20 bushels of acorns from one of my oak trees. The tree measures about 35'x 35'.

For the last six years that I have lived here the tree has produces no more than maybe 4 or 5 bushels of acorns in one season.

I have another oak tree in my back yard that is about the same size and it looks like there are about the same amount of acorns on the ground there as I raked up from the tree in my front yard.

Has anyone else noticed such an over abundance of acorns on their oak trees this year?

Freckles

[John McGaw]

Well, last year I had a super-abundance of them from several trees. This year there don't seem to be nearly so many. Odd thing is that last year was in a drought and this year there was excessive rainfall -- I'd have expected the situation would be the opposite.

One thing for sure is I need to get them up pretty quickly. Last Autumn I ignored them and I had literally hundreds of little oak trees popping up in my two large hosta beds this Spring and getting them out was no fun at all.

[lannerman]

Hi Freckles, just to confirm your observations re acorns, I too have noticed the massive crop being carried by oaks and also here in Cornwall the berries

on the holly trees this year is staggering, of course, all the old sages will be fortelling of the bad winter to come but I HOPE these excessive crops are a

reflection of a good early spring, plenty of rain in August and then an incredibly warm clement Autumn.

Best wishes Lannerman

[David E. Ross]

During a drought, some trees and shrubs react to the stress by putting more effort into reproducing their species. Not only do they produce more fruit (acorns for oaks), but also their pollen has a stronger effect on persons with allergies (possibly by being more abundant).

[John McGaw]

That would seem to correlate pretty well. During the drought Spring I had extremely bad tree allergy problems but during this last wet Spring my tree allergies were just about non-existent.