AUSTIN, Texas — Acorns, acorns and more acorns. This fall, the Austin area has been covered in them.
While it is certainly not unusual to see acorns in the fall, this season has been a little nuts.
Jonathan Motsinger with the Texas A&M Forest Service heads the office here in Central Texas. He said this Armageddon of acorns, or "masting" as foresters call it, isn't totally uncommon.
"A 'mast' year is what we call it, and that happens usually every three to five years. The other years they still put on seed, and you can still find acorns and pecans and all that on the off years. But then, there's just like for whatever reason, a really big boom year with lots and lots of acorns," Motsinger said.
Different oak species can mast at different times and for different reasons.
This year, it is mainly red and live oak tree acorns. Besides the general cycle they track, the phenomenon is a bit of a mystery. However, a lot of times in the case of nature, the trail of acorns can be traced back to the weather.
"So yeah, that's one line of thinking, is we had a big drought last year, we had favorable conditions in the spring," Motsinger said. "And then we got rain kind of just at the right time at the end of the fall. So those are kind of the contributing factors, and not necessarily everything that has to do with it, but definitely some things that are at play here.
Basically, good conditions like rain or bad conditions like drought can lead an oak tree to drop tons of acorns. This is a way that the oak tree can ensure that its population lives on. This mast of 2023, Motsinger said, is a mix of that.
"So it's kind of an interesting paradox where some trees were able to maintain those acorns and, are now having kind of an abundance. Whereas some of them did end up losing their acorns early. And what we're also seeing is that the acorn production is a little bit delayed this year from what we would normally expect," he said.
Because some acorns were dropped too late and too early, we have had a long and large overall acorn season.
If the acorns have been driving you a little nuts this fall, give your yard a good clean-up before they have the chance to pop back up in the spring.