Listen 5 min

       Share

       Comment on this story Comment

       I’m running out of ways to describe the sounds the acorns are making as they rain down upon me.

       When they separate from the oak trees, there’s a ripping sound, like an iceberg calving. When they hit the porch roof, it’s like a hailstorm. When they hit a gutter, it’s the clang of a gong. When they hit the flagstone patio, it’s a rifle-crack. When they land in the soft grass, the sound reminds me of the gentle thump of a lazily tossed baseball falling into a worn leather mitt.

       Fast, informative and written just for locals. Get The 7 DMV newsletter in your inbox every weekday morning. ArrowRight

       There really haven’t been too many gentle thumps lately. Frankly, it’s been like an artillery barrage in my corner of Montgomery County. The oak trees around us are spewing acorns like bullets from a Gatling gun.

       Being a moderately educated lover of nature, I know this happens every few autumns. It’s called a mast year, when, for reasons no one is quite sure of, trees produce more seeds than usual. But am I alone in thinking we’re experiencing something like peak acorn this year?

       Advertisement

       No, I’m not alone.

       “It is gangbusters,” said Francis Smith, natural resources planner at the Maryland Forest Service. “It is just a very heavy mast year, even beyond just the acorns of the oak species. I have folks reporting their hickory trees are dropping hickory nuts all over their yards. And pawpaws — I have a farmer in Anne Arundel, they’ve been there for a decade, and in her woods she’s never seen pawpaw produce and drop as much.

       “And there’ll be understory trees, too. Dogwoods, black gum and redbuds are full of seed buds.”

       That explains the papery, peapod-like seedpods hanging from the redbud in my backyard. At least those don’t make a racket when they fall.

       Joshua McLaughlin, manager of the Virginia Department of Forestry’s tree nursery in Augusta County, said white oak acorns are running behind last year’s numbers, but red oaks are off the charts.

       Advertisement

       McLaughlin oversees the collection of donated acorns from across the state to grow at the nursery. Recently, a crew was overwhelmed by what they encountered at Bridgewater College in the Shenandoah Valley.

       “The guy calls and says, ‘Josh, I don’t have enough sacks to get all the red oaks,’” he said.

       McLaughlin suggested he use a 4-foot-by-4-foot container used for carrying seedlings.

       Share this article Share

       “He came back, and he had it full to the top of red oak acorns. I’ve never seen that before.”

       Acorns are certainly blanketing our yard. Every time our dog goes outside, he pauses. I think Archie wonders if he should eat the acorns — the cicadas from 2021 were so yummy — before deciding they’re not for him.

       It’s a bit of a mystery how a bunch of trees decide to produce masses of seeds. Bruce Wood, a retired research horticulturist from the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Research Service, said there’s a possibility that trees synchronize their seed production via volatile chemicals released from their foliage or that they communicate via their roots.

       Advertisement

       But the real trigger for a mast year is the weather, Wood said. A hot, dry, sunny growing season followed by a warm late winter and an early spring correlates with the seed production of individual trees. It can also indirectly lead to synchronization among many trees.

       “This synchronization is not only affected by current spring weather, but weather conditions during the previous growing season and sometimes the growing season two years earlier,” Wood wrote in an email.

       Experts may not understand exactly how it happens — “Mother Nature is the one who knows the tricks of her trade,” Smith said — but they have a pretty good idea why: Every living creature wants to increase the chance its DNA will live on in future generations.

       Wrote Wood: “Masting confers an evolutionary advantage in that seed predators are satiated to such a degree that more seeds escape being eaten in masting years and therefore germinate and compete for space, sunlight and soil.”

       Advertisement

       In other words, there are too many acorns for the animals to eat them all. And if a fat mast year is preceded by a lean year, acorn-wise, there may be fewer predators to begin with. Of course, that means the opposite is true: More acorns leads to more acorn eaters.

       “The sudden increase in nutrients and energy from an abundance of seed results in substantial elevation of populations of seed-feeding animals such as squirrel, mice, deer, turkey, feral hog, black bear, certain bird species and certain other mammals,” Wood wrote.

       But more animals that feed on seeds means more animals that feed on animals that feed on seeds. Wood said an increase in ticks, fleas and mites can lead to an increase in diseases transmitted by the bloodsucking insects, such as Lyme disease.

       Well that’s just great. I’ve been wondering if this mast year means I need to wear a helmet when I go outside this fall, when it appears I’ll need to wear bug spray next spring and summer.

       Share

       Comments

       John Kelly’s Washington

       HAND CURATED

       In the District, the house the trash collectors forgot

       May 16, 2023

       In the District, the house the trash collectors forgot

       May 16, 2023

       Dan Snyder may be selling the team, but I still want an apology

       May 17, 2023

       Dan Snyder may be selling the team, but I still want an apology

       May 17, 2023

       Squirrel! Here are the winners from the 2023 squirrel photo contest.

       April 12, 2023

       Squirrel! Here are the winners from the 2023 squirrel photo contest.

       April 12, 2023

       View 3 more stories

       Loading...

       View more