J blueMay 26

#ClimateDiary #climatechange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateChangeGardening #gardening

I went hiking yesterday on a trail that is lined with wild serviceberries.

No serviceberries. 0. It looks like all the trees aborted the fruit before ripening as there is no trace of anything this year.

My rooted cutting aborted its fruit but I didn’t think anything of it since it’s only 20cm tall. But all the wild trees? WTF

The only thing I found were some dried fruit that looked like it came from last year.

Show threadDa_GutMay 26
@jblue pretty much every fruiting plant will do this on occasion. Back 12 or 14 years ago, pretty much every oak tree on most of the East Coast failed to produce acorns. all of them. across multiple states and species
Show threadJ blue
@Da_Gut 😱🤯 did they record/report what happened to the squirrels?
May 26 at 1:01amWeb
Show threadDa_GutMay 26
@jblue /shrugs. I don't know. It was a rough year for squirrels, no doubt. But the tree rats have a varied diet, so long term it hasn't made a difference.
Quite a few plants will do similar - though not (as far as is known) to that weird degree.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-do-trees-drop-so-many-seeds-one-year-and-then-hardly-any-the-next-180984303/
Why Do Trees Drop So Many Seeds One Year, and Then Hardly Any the Next?

A new paper suggests that plants may use slow seed years to prevent the spread of disease

Smithsonian Magazine