Over growth of maple seedlings

[farmer12071]

I have ten to twelve sugar maples in my yard. This is the first year I've had thousands of seedlings under them is it the warm winter or something with hurricane Irene's flooding,Ive always had a few seedlings but this year the ground is literally covered with 2-3" seedlings that I've been transplanting

[heus]

Last year was a huge seed year.

[Michael Greer]

We've got lots of gardens and flowerbeds around the house. This year we've pulled thousands and thousands of tiny maple seedlings. They're easy at this size, and considerably harder if you let them get much bigger...the whole North-east would become a forest in no time if it weren't for lawn-mowers and plows...

[maple maniac65]

I wonder how many of those seedlings will reach maturity/tapable age. I have never transplanted seedlings only trees that have established themselves.

[220 maple]

This happens every Spring in my woods, none survive, the Deer mow then off like a lawnmower.

Mark 220 Maple

[Michael Greer]

Early this spring, I was amazed, as in every year, at the vast numbers of tiny maple seedlings in my woods. By early summer there was a solid carpet of little four inch tall trees covering the entire forest floor. We have had a very hot and very dry summer here in northern New York and the little trees, now about six inches tall have burned out one by one. I'm guessing that by the end of summer we'll be down to 5% or less.
In the same woods, there are trees that have survived long enough to reach four of five feet in height. Even among these better established youngsters, there has been a die off of perhaps another ten percent just this summer. Even among trees in the fifteen to eighteen foot range there has been some die off. It's truly a miracle that a small percentage eventually reach full size. Given that we've probably altered our weather for the foreseeable future, it will require an even greater miracle to grow a maple forest.
The next fifty years will prove once and for all whether we are really a first-rate people, or just a bunch that lucked onto a first-rate continent...

[maple flats]

Certainly the heat and drought cause some to die, but natural selection likely played a role too. Understory trees die off from lack of water/nutrients/sun etc. The thinning goes on regardless of the prevailing weather pattern of the year. This also happens in all thickets. If you look at any overpopulated stand, there are always dead and dying populations. That is nature's way. The same as the trees that do survive gradually lose branches down low if they aren't productive enough. Trees actually shut down parts that lose more than they generate. If the limb costs the tree in terms of energy it stops sap flow to that part. Thus lower, shaded limbs in a forest tree self prune as the tree grows. I'll bet much of the dead seedlings just lost out in the quest for sun, nutrients and moisture. This is by design.

[Red-bellied Woodpecker]

The problem we have is deer. We get 0 regeneration unless we put some fencing around the seedlings or the deer eat it all in no time.