There are no acorns at all along the central east coast. There are multiple species of oak in the region.
My first response was: send in the scientists! Is it a disease? Climate change? Let’s figure it out, and then fix it! Resistant cultivars, temperature independent flowering mutants, it takes oak trees a long time to grow, so we need to get moving. However, my personal ecology contact tells me a more proper response is to wait and see what happens next year, if it does, then we can try to figure out what’s causing it.
“This is probably just a low year, a biological event, and it’ll go away,” Zimmer said.
Sounds like an unfortunate prediction from the early pages of PD James’ “Children of Men”
http://www.amazon.com/Children-Men-P-D-James/dp/0307279901/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228215634&sr=8-2
Comment by the beekeeper — December 2, 2008 @ 4:06 am
Did you figure out what this quote:
“Oaks are one of the few trees that can self-pollinate and “clone” themselves. ”
meant? Are they simply referring to self-pollination (which I would guess would not be so rare) or do they mean apomixis?
Comment by the beekeeper — December 2, 2008 @ 4:26 am
http://www.topix.com/forum/home/gardening/TEIANN0MSC7UNC9JQ
Comment by the beekeeper — December 2, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
I just assumed that quote referred only to self pollination. Apomixis would be much more interesting, but ever since I read the story about the giant project to “clone” redwood trees… by rooting twigs cut from the parent tree, I’ve been resigned to overuse of the term cloning in the plant related fields.
Comment by admin — December 4, 2008 @ 8:38 am
actually, we had very late hard frosts,coupled with a very dry growing season! i imagine the frosts must have hit during their pollination/young fruit developement stage. btw, there are some,just very few! i say lets see what happens this year!
Comment by hollis lilley — December 21, 2008 @ 1:03 am