Acorn famine in mid wales

[Welsh cleaning services]

I can’t find a single acorn at my usual big oaks.

Is this the case across the uk? Does it have a big impact on wildlife.

Last year seemed a bumper year.

[GWYNFIL]

My local donor seed tree nowt! N west Eng. Chestnut loads. can anyone confirm they have cycles. Last year same tree thousands all sprouting on the ground.

 

Edited November 18, 2021 by GWYNFIL

[organic guy]

I read somewhere or heard on Gardeners QT that they have a degree of control and tend not to have 2 big years following as it is too big a drain on resources. 

We have none here but have masses of hawthorn and other hedge berries. 

[marktownend]

I'm not an arb person but am rapidly learning about trees after buying 4 acres of woodland with my siblings this summer.

 

I was just tapping out a big long reply explaining what I learnt somewhere about a week ago (either in a book or some obscure old Radio 4 programme I found on BBC Sounds?) when I found this which explains it far better...

 

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2020/10/what-is-a-mast-year/

 

Essentially, every few years they produce more fruit (linked to weather conditions) than the squirrels and other acorn lovers can munch meaning that some spares get left, potentially hidden by squirrels that either forget where they left them or succumb to squirrel munchers meaning more saplings grow over the next few years. Apparently mast years as they're called can then lead to a population boom in the acorn munchers.

 

Don't think I've even seen an acorn this year (either from our 4' DBH oak in our garden or in various woodlands in Wiltshire and Hampshire).

Edited November 18, 2021 by marktownend
Link didn't work

[Paul in the woods]

I've got quite a few oaks about of various ages and they've produced at least some acorns every year before this. Not noticed a single acorn at all this year.

 

Round here it's the jays that spread the acorns about, when they can that is.

[richyrich]

Hardly seen any acorns this year- southern North Yorkshire..

[Lowestoft Firewood]

Sure there was loads last year but not noticed many this year.

 

Thought there was such things as mast years, does that apply to Oak too?

 

Edit - just read the post from Mark above, so guess mast years include Oak.

Edited November 18, 2021 by Lowestoft Firewood

[Vedhoggar]

There were oak acorns in Cumbria last month, not sure how it compares though to past years. 

[dan blocker]

5 hours ago, Welsh cleaning services said:

I can’t find a single acorn at my usual big oaks.

Is this the case across the uk? Does it have a big impact on wildlife.

Last year seemed a bumper year.

Have you just looked because I reckon your a few weeks behind the squirrels, jays and other critters. Some of my trees were loaded this year, some had none. Either way they were all cleaned up weeks ago🤔

[Vedhoggar]

In England good mast years are 3 to 5 years for both Peduculate and Sessile oak [Matthews J. D. Silvicultural Systems (1989)].