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Acorns Disappear Across the Country
Hugh Pickens writes "Botanist Rod Simmons thought he was going crazy when couldn't find any acorns near his home in Arlington County, Virginia. 'I'm used to seeing so many acorns around and out in the field, it's something I just didn't believe,' said Simmons. 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. Simmons and Naturalist Greg Zell began to do some research and found Internet discussion groups, including one on Topix called 'No acorns this year,' reporting the same thing from as far away as the Midwest up through New England and Nova Scotia. 'We live in Glenwood Landing, N.Y., and don't have any acorns this year. Really weird,' wrote one. 'None in Kansas either! Curiouser and curiouser.' The absence of acorns could have something to do with the weather and Simmons has a theory about the wet and dry cycles. But many skeptics say oaks in other regions are producing plenty of acorns, and the acorn bust is nothing more than the extreme of a natural boom-and-bust cycle. But the bottom line is that no one really knows. 'It's sort of a mystery,' Zell said."
...to what the majority of comments to this article will be related, given the delicious quotes like this in the article:'
Of course, these will be ignored on page two of the story:
I know it's not a popular sentiment here, but Beware the church of climate alarm.
Here in the Hanover county north of Richmond Va, we had an early and massive acorn crop. It would be interesting to correlate some weather phenomenon to acorns (long drought in late summer = early crop, very wet spring = huge crop, etc).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
In Boston 2 years ago we were walkign on acorns, last year was a lower year, this year barely an acorn can be found. makes walking a bit safer :)
I remember one year growing up the Oaks in my backyard didn't produce any acorns, instead they produced these strange green globes that were soft almost like a grape except more spherical and speckled. When I split one open there was something akin to what cotton wood trees put out or dandylions, a soft fluffy thing. I wonder if the Oaks have a secondary seed production mechanism? Is that what I saw? that was probably 20 years or more ago so the memory is a little hazy. I wonder if the oaks are producing those things? or nothing at all.
This really puts a causality twist on that old chestnut.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
I have noticed this cycle in the Boston area over the last 20 years. The squirrel population will follow the acorn yield. Some years there are very few squirrels about, and the chipmunk population seems to boom. Then the squirrels will have a great year and have too many little ones. Some of the babies will end up on the ground, pushed out by the others.
Don't let your kids adopt them or talk you into taking them to a wildlife shelter. Believe me. All you have to do is put them back into a tree in a basket. The mommy squirrel will come find them and take them home by the scruff like a kitten.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I bet they'll find a couple of really greedy overweight squirrels up in them woods.
I had what felt like a metric ton in my yard this year.
All over my state we have the typical ton of acorns.. Some are freaking huge compared to previous years.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
For the record, there was an acorn boom a couple of years ago that was responsible for an increase of Lyme disease. Apparently, when you get more acorn, you get more ticks the next season.
Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
Every Autumn, my brothers and I get into a nice acorn fight at Grandma's house in North Jersey. There was no shortage of ammunition this year.
Big Acorn needs a bailout.
Seems like there are plenty of acorns here.
this guy's got em all
http://www.old-computers.com/club/collectors/ordis.asp?c=3664
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Acorn is a long-forgotten, but actually tremendously influential company. Had Acorn not made the Acorn Electron, and subsequently the BBC Micro, I'm sure British IT would not be what it is today. Oh wait... this article is about a nut. Silly me, I thought I was on Slashdot.
Panic when the dolphins decide its time to leave.
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
Oaks have male and female plants that use airborn pollenation techniques, but they will self pollenate or clone themselves if needed. I would look at chemicals or precipitation before looking at bees.
(for the Christers: perhaps God told the trees their children are no longer needed(/sarcasm))
I have heard reports in the past of hungry packs of squirrels attacking and eating cats and small dogs. I wonder if those reports will increase this winter.
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
There are really two groups of oaks: the red and the white oaks.
The white oaks are generally preferred by most small animals (and deer!), as their acorns are lower in tannins and produced much more regularly (a good crop approximately every other year, and less difference between a good year and a bad year).
Red oaks have a less palatable acorn and can go up to 7 years between heavy mast years (with up to a 135x difference between a bad and a good year).
Oddly, with all the research done on the topic, there's little that can be done to predict a future crop, as cyclic production varies so widely and seems dependant on such a myriad of factors. In areas heavily dominated by oaks, we still even have to "wait and see" for a harvest... otherwise it's a game of roulette, and you might have such poor production you don't get a forest of oak back at all (but red maple is a whole other can of worms).
Sam
Have a more open world view, moderators; the OP is referring to the arc linking all the episodes of series 4 of Doctor Who. It's the first thing I thought of when I read the post, and is also why the article is tagged 'badwolf' and 'starsgoingout'.
I haven't seen them in a while either. But my first thought was these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Computers
Erik Dalén
This sounds like the beginning of an M. Night Shyamalan movie.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
About your apparent need to deny, out of hand, even a remote possibility that this or any other event is linked to anthropogenic climate change.
You appear to have decided a priori how things are, and seem to go into an intellectual panic when something comes up that challenges you understanding of thing. You're just as bad as you claim the global warming "alarmists" to be, worse perhaps. You're willing to cling to what a tiny fraction of people have to say about the topic because it suits what you want to hear.
Every so many years the Oak Trees cut off production of acorns. It has been documented and studied somewhat. I remember reading a scientific article about it in my bio class. The thinking is that there is a codependent relationship between Oak trees and squirrels. The oak trees depend on squirrels for new oak trees (squirrels disperse and plant seeds and forget where some of them are) and the squirrels depend largely on the acorns for food. the Acorn production increases year to year, creating a population increase for the squirrels. (stable food = more babies, more babies that survive) This goes on until there is a population boom of squirrels. At about this time the oak trees halt acorn production, producing a mass die off of squirrels. From the human point of view this seems highly ungrateful of the oak tree. After all the squirrels are busy helping the trees reproduce and now the trees repay the squirrels by making them starve. But the thinking is that if the oak trees didn't do this the squirrel population would reach an equilibrium with the oak tree population's acorn production. Each and every (or nearly every) acorn would get eaten, and next to none of the acorns would result in new oak trees. This local population of oak trees would die out. So it is only the oak trees that are "underhanded" that survive and make new trees. It shouldn't be hard to find more information on this; probably under ecology literature.
I chose trees as my area of natural science geekdom, because I couldn't stand those snotty birders who take a glance at a streak through the trees that an ordinary mortal couldn't narrow down to "bird" then say something like, "Ah, a Stimpson's downy breasted tit." Trees stand still long enough to put an identification to an objective test.
Oak species often display yearly variations in acorn production. This may be helpful in that you want surplus acorns from the point of view of squirrels; producing lots of acorns every year means you get lots of squirrels. Producing a bumper crop every three or four years and a small crop otherwise maximizes the number of surplus acorns you make.
I've heard some say that White Oaks (with smoothly rounded leaf lobes) have three to four year cycles and Red Oaks (with pointy veins that stick out past the end of the leaf lobes) are acyclic. I've also heard the opposite, that White Oaks produce acorns every year and Red Oaks have longer cycles of five or even six years. My own experience is that the White Oaks I know produce bumper crops ever several years, and the Red Oaks seem to produce reliably every year. However, individual trees often vary considerably from the normal habit of their species. In my experience the yearly variations in the Red Oaks I know are small, and the acorns produced are always extremely bitter, however some Red Oaks seem to produce acorns like White Oaks: sweet, and in bumper crops.
That said, the Red Oaks in my yard have for the last fourteen years produced healthy crops of extremely bitter acorns every year. I've lived in this house fifteen years and every year, like clockwork, there has been a night in early November where I've woken up to a continual refrain of "pok-pok-pok-tumble", as the oaks shed the bulk of their acorns in one day.
It didn't happen this year. This article made me go out an look, and the tree is completely bare and there is very little acorn debris around the tree or the gutters.
Weird.
Still, the Northern Red Oak species is reported by some as having long annual crop cycles, and nobody really knows what might trigger a good or bad year. It stands to reason that trees in an area ought to have some kind of climatic trigger for coordinating their production variations. Otherwise, the winner would be a tree that produces lots of acorns every year.
This could be a situation where a meme gains steam because somebody reports a mysterious lack of acorns, and then others (like me) run out and look at their tree and say, "good lord, there aren't any acorns." Chance are if we'd been paying attention, we'd have noticed that there is occasionally a year in which the trees don't produce many acorns.
It's still a weird feeling, though, to read this story and realize that my trees produced hardly any acorns this year.
If this is real, it may be trees responding to a common climatic cue, a cue which is not necessarily a sign of a widespread disaster (unless you are a squirrel). I'd hypothesize that they ought to have some kind of cue that helps keep the squirrel population in check.
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It's part of a plot developed by the squirrels. They want us to feel sorry for them, feed them, and invite them into our homes. They've become jealous of what the dogs and cats have, and they want in...
I don't know about where you guys are at, but we are having exactly the opposite problem. I'm in Mobile, Alabama, and I have heard MANY people comment on the HUGE amount of acorns we are getting this year. My wife and I tried to sit on the deck yesterday and watch the kids play, but every time a kid came buy we would get pelted. I raked the yard and after I was done, I had about 30lbs of acorns I had to get up with a shovel. I have noticed fewer squirrels around though.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Really weird. We have about 15 oak trees on our lot in Nashua, NH and we had noticed the complete absence of acorns this year as well.
We've got a bumper crop of acorns this year. I've never seen anything like it - my front yard is almost literally paved with acorn bits and pieces now. And we're less than 200 miles from the supposed VA dead zone in the article...
Speaking of squirrels, do the English hunt and eat squirrels? There is a tradition of doing just that at least in the southern US. I used to hunt squirrels every fall as a youngster. My grandmother would cook them for me. No time for it now 8-(.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
n/t
I think a lot of these problems stem back to the ridiculously warm weather we had late last January. It was in the 60s and 70's for nearly a week. Fucked up a lot of my plants and killed many of them once it returned to normal cold a week or so later. I've talked to several people who've had similar problems this year with various plants likely due to that warm spell.
It's no mystery.
There's a bumper crop of acorns on my property this year and last year there were almost none.
Why? Last year we had a late freeze followed by a drought.
The volume of mast crop always varies, but during bad years there's very little production. The people screaming and hollering about it need to go outside more.
So this educated fool has a "theory" about wet and dry cycles, does he? Any rube farmer or hunter out there can tell you that the mast crop is directly related to wet and dry cycles. Any botanist who doesn't know that already shouldn't be able to call himself one.
I guess it's much less fun to understand the workings of nature than it is to lay the blame on a favorite political cause.
Squirrels are just rats with good PR.
Squirrel!
produced 4 large yard trash bags full of acorns just from the 400 sq foot parking pad which is located under its branches and perhaps covers 20% of the total area under its branches. While last year it produced about 5 to 10% of that.
I figure that this single tree produced between 400 and 800 pounds of acorns this year! Based on having to pick up the bags I shoveled them into from the parking pad.
The difference was a months long drought the year before and then this year we were consistently above seasonal average rainfalls through the entire year.
My other oak trees were also putting out acorns in heavy volumes this year in contrast to last.
When trees are feeling unstressed, they put energy into reproduction. When they are stressed, they focus on self-preservation.
Not sure then how Rod Simmons is claiming New England has no acorns. Well, yes the answer to that is in TFA... he did all his research by reading newsgroups and BB's. I couldnt imagine a worse way to gather objective data, since no one would post normal or excessive acorn production, he doesnt compare newsgroup chatter to prior years with 'normal' acorn production, does no validation of claims, and still cherry-picks the results. Rod Simmons is an *idiot*.
We've had a bumper crop this year of acorns, chestnuts, and pecans. Especially pecans because of the drought the insect population that normally eats them is way down.
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
Most people don't realize this but we are actually still in an ice age. The planet goes through natural cycles of cold and hot. Our cold climate is warming, perhaps from anthropogenic disturbances but also perhaps from natural climate change.
Before industrial fossil fuel CO2 emissions, the Holocene has been in a very stable period, neither warming nor cooling, which is actually kind of unusual. Normally it would have been cooled slightly by now.
Sure the globe might be warming faster from CO2 but it will warm regardless we just might have accelerated things a bit.
Why should it warm regardless? As I said, if you go by past interglacials it should probably be cooling. If you go by this interglacial's earlier history, it shouldn't be warming or cooling much. Unless you're proposing that the whole ice age cycle was due to end this time around anyway. What evidence do you have for that? I've never seen that in any of the geological literature.
When all of the ice is "gone" the planet will effectively reboot and start the process all over again. Once the oceans warm up to the point condensation will kick in, extreme storms, and then a massive cooling period.
Again, what is the basis for that? The last time we left an extended greenhouse for an extended ice age (~50 million years ago?), it wasn't because the oceans were too warm or all the ice was gone. (It had been warm with no ice for millions of years before that.) It was more likely due to weathering from the Himalayas drawing CO2 out of the atmosphere when the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia.
The 'naturalists' will be stuck inside their box right up until their extinction occurs.
If you're really so worried about future global cooling, you should be arguing for us to save our greenhouse gases for later when we need them, rather than use them all up now when we don't.
"LONG-TERM PATTERNS OF ACORN PRODUCTION FOR FIVE OAK SPECIES IN XERIC FLORIDA UPLANDS"
Study of acorn production across several species in FL from 1969 to 1996 http://www.esajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1890/01-0707
From the abstract: We identified regular cycles of acorn production ... and found evidence that annual acorn production is affected by the interactions of precipitation, which is highly variable ..., with endogenous reproductive patterns. In contrast, acorn production showed no significant association with minimum winter temperatures.
I need a rest between naps some days
The bees took them!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Here in Tulsa, none of the pecan trees in our backyard produced any pecans this year, though we had a bumper crop last year. They were big enough to be edible. I collected about 20 pounds but could have collected a lot more. The park near our house used to be a pecan orchard and it too has no pecans this year. I don't know why. I suspected it was because of the terrible ice storm we had last year damaging the trees, but someone told me that sometimes after a bumper crop they don't produce.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
...the solar trend disagrees in rate, timing, and magnitude with the warming since the mid-20th century, although it explains a fair bit of the warming before then.
If by "Solar Record" you mean the sunspot cycle, it is in direct agreement with the increase in warming trends with the latter half of the 20th Century. The number of sunspots is 70% higher on average in the latter half of the last century compared to the first half, and even through comparable time periods in the 19th Century as well. As well, the number of days without sunspots is markedly lower throughout every cycle in the latter half of the 20th Century. Only this year, 2008, the sunspots are down dramatically, along with global temps. Will this be a prolonged trends? I don't know, and can't speculate, but I will be keeping an eye out for a continuing coincidence between sunspots and temperatures. Scientists are only now discovering the link between the solar wind generation and sunspots, as well as a possible mechanism between the solar wind and energy transference to the troposphere.
Impetuous! Homeric!