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Acorn off yr?

Slabzilla73

Slabzilla73

Well-Known Member
SH Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2021
Messages
373
Hows the acorn mast in your area? Here in the thumb of MI, it seems to be an off yr. Very little if any on the ground. How about where you hunt?
 
Central PA spotty about the right amount for optimal hunting conditions. Whites and Chestnuts were few and far between. What whites I did find were hoovered up before the season even came in and the chestnuts were gone about as fast as they could hit the ground as I haven't seen one since mid October. Some loaded reds/blacks but the producing trees are spotty and deer don't really seem to be on them yet until they leach some more tannins. Those should make for great late season spots.
 
Pennsylvania here

Reds and Whites were loaded this year. Whites have dropped and not much deer sign under them from what I am seeing like the first two weeks since most of what hit the ground is gone. Now they seem to have moved to some Chestnut Oaks and Reds.
 
It's been bad here. The only reds I have seen are on giant trees near water sources. The white oaks only just started dropping and the ones with good acorns are few and far between. Many of the acorns are rotten or wormy.
 
Our Black Oak tree in the front yard also produced very little compared to last year.
 
for me its a regional thing....closer to my house and parish hardly anything. Hour away along the Mississippi border,its decent.
 
Does anyone have any knowledge on why the area I am in which would be about 2 hours south of @elk yinzer was a huge acorn production year yet up where he is, he isn't seeing much? I will say that the area I hunt they do a lot of habitat work such as burns, clearcuts, etc.
 
Hall17 said:
Does anyone have any knowledge on why the area I am in which would be about 2 hours south of @elk yinzer was a huge acorn production year yet up where he is, he isn't seeing much? I will say that the area I hunt they do a lot of habitat work such as burns, clearcuts, etc.
Click to expand...

Not an expert this is all just observation and conjecture.

Seems to me it's largely a mix of temperature and wind during pollination.

I figure a hard freeze can kill the buds and recently fertilized embryos just like it can kill other mast-producing crops. I've seen that happen a couple years notably 2020 we had a hard frost + snow in mid-May and that year was as barren as I've ever seen.

I also believe a really rapid spring greenup can cause issues, as I believe happened last year. 2021 we had a super early, fast and hot spring and the whites last year were spotty and same with reds this year. Whites produce fruit the same year, reds take 2 years. My guess is that just throws off everything's biological clock so pollination isn't as synced up? The fact that I spent ~2 months cleaning pollen off my house and car that spring would seem to indicate that vs. the normal ~2 weeks.

Oaks are wind pollinators so if you get a couple super calm or super windy days I think that can also influence pollination, possibly causing some trees to bear but not as heavily as they potentially would.

Within those factors even in the same area I often see oaks producing vs. not at different elevations. I think they probably bloom at different times at different elevations and the ones that have good conditions produce. Frost also impacts things differently at different elevations and the valleys usually frost up first thus why apple orchards have to be located higher up.

After pollination, they can experience drought or pests and we had both this summer with gypsy moths and no rain in July. Those trees now are not healthy not only this year but going into next year too so who knows what that means, some trees invest all their resources into a last-ditch reproduction effort and others will not.
 
I always assumed acorn yields were effected by having a frost when the buds were susceptible and or drought conditions. Where I am in Southwest NH we had a few acorns at the bow opener (9/15) that were gone in a couple days and that was it. The deer are in the fields and peoples gardens.
 
Slabzilla73 said:
Hows the acorn mast in your area? Here in the thumb of MI, it seems to be an off yr. Very little if any on the ground. How about where you hunt?
Click to expand...
Where at in the thumb? I've been out scouting a lot this season looking for fresh sign to hunt. I'm in Lapeer, and I spent all day yesterday in a huge oak forest with no sign of acorns. Went to a small piece of public a couple of weeks ago, found plenty reds on the ground but no sign of deer actively eating them. Haven't seen any whites producing or dropping.
 
I was actually doing some research on this subject last night. At least for the properties I hunt. The reds didn't make jack squat except for the 4 or 5 on the top of a ridge of 1 property. The 8-10 whites on the same property made a bumper crop but they were in a creek bottom like the red oaks surrounding it. One ~12' tall 4" at the base white oak looks like it has more acorns than leaves on it.

It puzzled me that the white oaks made but the red oaks less than 100 yards away didn't make any at all.
 
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