ottotheboar

I have noticed and others have confirmed it there are very few acorns on the trees this year.
It seems in the north it is not an issue has anyone else noticed this ?

Sally Redux

They are over here. The street outside my house is mulched in crushed acorns.

WEBlue

We have just moved to a different area in the northeast US, so I don't know what's "normal" and what's not around here...But I do remember that in England there were cycles in acorn production that varied from year to year. Some years the acorns were everywhere & some years not so much.

The Virginia Dept. of Forestry agrees with you, though. They're asking the public to collect and save acorns for them to grow seedlings from, as their employees are finding fewer this autumn.

http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/222220221.html

If this is true, I feel for the poor squirrels. And we have wild turkeys here--they're supposed to be big consumers of acorns. And also, don't deer eat acorns in the autumn?

Pulaski

We have a number of oak trees on our property in NC and some years we get virtually no acorns. For a while it seemed to be every other year, but after 11 years, I now know the pattern is not that consistent. My casual observation is that there is a heavy crop following a period of stress, as if the trees are making an extra effort in case they die soon. Sounds a little daft, but it is the basic rationale for pruning plants, create stress in a plant and it comes back fighting.
Send them down the road into NC, we're snowed under with them!
Virtually every herbivorous and omnivorous mammal in the woods will eat acorns, from the mouse up, including chipmunks, squirrels, ground hogs, deer, and the largest omnivorous mammals that are commonplace in the US, bears. By bulk consumed I would guess that across most of the US, more acorns are eaten by deer than by any other mammal.

robin1234

That's interesting, we live in northern New York State, in the St. Lawrence River valley, and we have a phenomenal year for all fruit this year, including acorns.

We've lived in this house for sixteen years, and the crops of everything are many times greater than normal - blackberries, apples, butternuts, acorns, wild grapes, elderberries, etc.

Butternuts, for instance - we have two trees in the lawn, usually we get maybe a couple of hundred nuts. This year, thousands. All the apple trees around are groaning with the weight of fruit, in fact many branches have broken off as a result. And the chipmunks and squirrels are going crazy collecting the acorns, there are so many.

Our son who lives in England says it is the same over there with the beech mast, it is a very good year for that ...

Sheepdip

Tons on my oak (and the floor now) here in SC, but not the sort I remember from home.

ottotheboar

This has been a very odd year in Southern Virginia I noticed there were barely any Persimmons this year.
In the 20 years we have been here I have never seen clover grow as well.
There are some red berries the deer are eating and they look to be eating the Paw Paws.
We have 15 oaks round the house and only 3 are producing a small number of acorns normally we have tons of them.
The squirrels are eating Hickory nuts which seem to be plentiful.
We have a couple of food plots and the deer are grazing those hard right now.

Bob

Bloody everywhere, the squirrels can't keep up...

bevinva

I've seen lots of them in Virginia Beach.

WEBlue

So...I have been looking for acorns everywhere I see oak trees--and there are lots of oaks round about--and I haven't seen any. I see plenty of dried-up brown oak leaves falling, but no acorns. Strange!

Pulaski

What's the acorn crop looking like this year? The willow leafed oaks in my yard, plus the other species, produced very heavily this year, and the squirrels are getting fat. I suspect that the deer are filling up on acorns too. The oaks outside my office, which I think are chestnut oaks, also produced a very heavy crop.

Hotscot

My squirrels have enjoyed my apple, peach, pear, plum and almond crop.
When winter comes they come round and snarf some of the seed I put out for the birds.

WEBlue

I've seen a few on the ground at home in the last week. Not a lot, just like there aren't a lot of leaves falling. I think it's been so dry that the trees round our way are stressed and hanging on to all their bits. We had no acorns last autumn (really not one!) so at first I didn't recognize the few I was stepping on....

Right now I'm visiting family south of me and I see a fair number amongst the fallen leaves.

ottotheboar

After quite a cool summer we have heavy crops of acorns, pecans, walnuts, paw paws and one of the heaviest persimmon crops I have ever seen.
The apples and peaches did not do well some trees did not fruit at all.

mum 2 3

Last year was a bumper year for apples, pears and acorns. This year not one apple or pear but still loads of acorns in north west New Jersey. There are now more chipmunks than squirrels too?