Comments on: The Mystery of the Missing Acorns

By: dave

dave — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 14:17:57 +0000

I live in se pa, and my trash cans are suffering miserably

By: JoAnn

JoAnn — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 21:21:59 +0000

should i feed the squirrels and if so what should i feed them – a couple of them devoured the electric wires on a neighbors christmas decoration

By: John

John — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:44:27 +0000

Few acorns here in Tulsa, OK, but a moderate amount of hickory nuts. Near Fayetteville, AR, a relative reports zero acorns, but a record crop of hickory nuts.

By: Fritz Souder

Fritz Souder — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:37:05 +0000

Some spring frosts at precise times can do it (damaging the buds and flowers ). I remember my grandfather (his father-in-law being an arborist) saying that late frosts can cause acorn production to drop. It’s probably just that things happened at the wrong time. It’ll be better next year.

By: Les Hummon

Les Hummon — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 20:52:07 +0000

Here in S.W. Virginia acorns are piled up under trees. More acorns than I can remember in years. Weather has been dry all summer, water table down.

By: Kevin Crispell

Kevin Crispell — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:09:21 +0000

No acorns in Wellesley, Massachusetts either. We did have a very rainy spring/summer.

By: Greg Thomas

Greg Thomas — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:05:46 +0000

I wasn’t aware of any shortage of acorns this year until I read this article. I live in NJ and have 3 large oak tress in my back yard. I usually roundup hundreds of acorns during fall cleanup. But now that i think about it, there wan’t any acorns this fall, just the usual tons of leaves. Maybe that explains why I haven’t been seeing my squirely friends. Not to worry though, I have plenty of oak seedlings sprouting every spring.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:58:15 +0000

I have a cabin in Clarion, Pennsylvania(northwestern PA) with many large oaks, usually thousands of acorns – this year, I didn’t notice any!

By: Rod Cummings

Rod Cummings — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:41:08 +0000

I live NW of Washington DC in Montgomery Co., MD. I have two large, healthy pin oaks in my backyard that produced a moderate acorn crop this year. Between the squirrels, bluejays and chipmunks,the two trees were denuded in about 3 weeks. I believe my local critters will survive the winter. I also noticed that some other nearby oaks produced acorns this year as well. We got much of those same spring rains claimed to be the culprit for the lack of acorns this year. My question would be, why did the local oaks here produce acorns while other local area oaks didn’t? Is there something else at play?…stay tuned.

By: Rack ‘em up « Rethorykal Questions

Rack ‘em up « Rethorykal Questions — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:15:06 +0000

[...] some students in an uproar over a culling scheduled over winter break. I’m going to guess, if the acorns haven’t shown up in this area either, that there will be more starving animals and more calls for culling in the future. [...]

By: Daniel G.

Daniel G. — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:57:55 +0000

Oak trees in Illinois produced good heavy crop this year.

By: Sarah Zielinski

Sarah Zielinski — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 16:36:51 +0000

Oak trees can self-pollinate (they are some of the few trees that can do so). However, mixing their genes with those of other trees is preferred, so they really rely on wind pollination. That’s why our rainy weather is a suspect–it may have washed all the pollen out of the air.

By: eddie

eddie — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:37:55 +0000

Do the oaks rely on honey bees or other insects for polination?

By: Charles F.

Charles F. — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:21:31 +0000

Oh dear, I hope squirrels in the Northeast survive the winter. My father, who lives in western New York, reports the squirrels in his backyard are finding no shortage of walnuts from his walnut tree this year. He’s grown tired of picking up the walnuts this fall — and, is tired of one squirrel, in particular, de-shelling on his porch.