Acorn crop

[WV Sawmiller]

   Looks like we are in for a bumper crop of acorns this year. My lumber storage pole barn is under a couple of young but mature white oaks and seems like there is at least one acorn per minute, often more, bouncing off my metal roof out there. The beech mast looks real good on the trees hanging over my pasture fence on the way to the barn. No reason for the deer to come to my feeders unless they like corn for dessert. May mean the feeders will be more attractive later in the season.

   My wife and I watched a chipmunk with very full cheeks jump on a log cutoff yesterday. I am sure they are storing tons of the acorns under my lumber stacks. Sampson is scurrying around like crazy after them out there.

   How are they looking in your area?

   I got my bow out and 20 yard pin works fine. Am fine tuning the 2nd pin for 30 yards. It actually seemed to work fine for 35 yards. I very seldom shoot anything over 20 anyway. One high shot only clipped about half my bale of hay back stop and I left the practice point in the barn. May come out in the morning but the arrow seems okay. Oh well, that is normal cost of practice IMHO.

[thecfarm]

I have only red oak and those acorns are a dropping too.

[WDH]

   How are they looking in your area?

Thanks to Hurricane Irma, all our acorns are on the ground early, some too early like with the red oaks.  The pecan crop is a disaster, green nuts all over the ground in the orchards. 

[Peter Drouin]

I have a tin roof with R oaks all over, All day, bang, bang,

[Don P]

We are having a good crop but I don't think it is a bumper year. They have good size and there are plenty but in a bumper year it is like walking on ball bearings in the back yard.

[Skip]

TONS of walnuts, one of the biggest crops in years. Even smaller volunteers are loaded .

[WV Sawmiller]

   Our walnuts are decent this year. We had a bumper crop last year and a friend from NC took 3 feed sacks full back with her. She sent us a walnut cracker I am going to be trying this year.

Peter,

   If you think acorns make a lot of noise when they hit a tin roof you need to hear the walnuts and buckeyes when they hit one.

[Magicman]

I have not checked our acorn crop, but the Beech tree beside my drive it loaded with mast and the squirrels know it.
 

 
This is the squirrel cutting from one day.

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

   I have a huge scaleybark hickory on my property line and rode past it a couple days ago. The shells the squirrels had cut looked like your beech. They are having a field day up there this year.

   Folks around here used to say one side of a buckeye is poison and the other is okay to eat and the squirrels know the difference. My son said one of his professors told them the truth was it is all toxic and what happens is a young squirrel doesn't know better and eats half the buckeye then gets a bellyache and quits.

   Had to stop writing because Sampson was having a fit in the front yard. went out to check on what he was barking at and found a big old blue heron had lit on my truck and Sampson wanted him to leave. The water is getting low in the creek and the old heron is fishing in the deep pools. Sampson has been spooky around large birds ever since an eagle swooped at him in the back yard right after I got him. There's never a dull moment around here.

[Autocar]

We have a tin roof and it is a constunt bang bang as the hickory nuts drop off the trees. Buckeye trees are so loaded that there tops are bent over from all the weight Paw Paws are the same way laying on the ground there so many. Acorns I see some on tops as I log but not as many as other years. This morning a slow rain know wind and the squirrels are jumping from tree to tree what a squirrel hunting morning.

[kenfrommaine]

"Here" we have red oak and they are loaded with acorns, also most beech nuts I have seen in the past 10 years or so and the pine trees have more cones this year then in a long time. Deer should be nice and fat and  tasty this fall. 

[grouch]

Nothing out of the ordinary for acorns, here, but for the first time since it was a sapling, my front yard walnut tree has no walnuts. None. Zero.

Maybe it's just resting up from previous years.

[Magicman]

The squirrels are being absolutely sure that I will not have any Pecans to gather this year.  The ground is completely covered with shells and hulls.   

[fishfighter]

   How are they looking in your area?

Thanks to Hurricane Irma, all our acorns are on the ground early, some too early like with the red oaks.  The pecan crop is a disaster, green nuts all over the ground in the orchards.

All oaks are loaded. Just native pecan trees here have a few nuts. This is the third year pecan trees are not going to produce good in these parts.

[ToddsPoint]

   How are they looking in your area?

Thanks to Hurricane Irma, all our acorns are on the ground early, some too early like with the red oaks.  The pecan crop is a disaster, green nuts all over the ground in the orchards.

I live at the northern edge of the pecans range.  I have a fairly large pecan tree.  In the past 20 yrs, it's only had edible nuts one time.  Most years they fall off early while still green.  Some yrs. they stay on until the middle of winter.  What's up with this tree?  Am I too far north for good pecans?  Near I-70 in south central part of state.  Gary

[Kbeitz]

My shop and the barn has a tin roof. My neighbor stop over yesterday and ask
who was doing all the shooting. I told her it was just the walnuts falling on the
tin roof.

[WV Sawmiller]

   My horse and mule make multiple trips every day to my storage shed to get the WO acorns falling on to it. They are worse than the deer and squirrels wanting them.

[Magicman]

Cattle will also harvest your Pecan crop.   

[Dave Shepard]

I'm starting to see a few shagbark nuts around. It's been a few years since the roads were covered with them. That, or there are more squirrels than usual. My grandfather used to pick up bushels of them off the roads. He'd let the cars do the hulling for him.

[WV Sawmiller]

MM,

   I don't know how they do it but we had an old family milk cow as a kid and I remember throwing some old oily pecans in the pastures and watching her eat them. She'd chew and you'd hear the nuts cracking and she'd kind of mouth them around and the hulls would kind of roll out one side of her mouth. I still don't know how they do it. Never knew anybody else who had noticed or commented on cows eating pecans till now.

[Magicman]

Beats me.  I guess that any animal that can upchuck a cud, chew it, and then send it back down the correct pipe can do other amazing things too.   

[thecfarm]

snagbark nuts are falling at my place. I only have 3 small trees.

[grouch]

Anybody who's been bitten by a horse, mule, cow or calf wouldn't be surprised to see them munching pecans without trouble.

The big dog (see avatar) can eat black walnuts, shell and all.


(Didn't even make it to the 2nd page before "Acorn crop" turned into "FOOD!"
I love this place.)