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Thread: No Maple Seeds for 2020?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Williston, VT
    Posts
    615

    Default No Maple Seeds for 2020?

    I wish I got a photo last year of all of the maple seeds. We were building our patio and they became a serious nuisance. I was sweeping up shovel fulls and I worried that they'd be sprouting up between the pavers. This year - nothing! I can't find a single seed. So what's up? Yes, it's been a dry year. And I can imagine that the prolific seeding is cyclical. But no seeds! Go figure.

    Has anyone else noticed there are no seeds this year? Or is it just our sugarbush.

    On the positive side, wow look at all of the little maple sprouts that appeared in 2020.
    Ken & Sherry
    Williston, VT
    16x34 Sugarhouse
    1,500 taps on high vacuum, Electric Releaser & CDL Sap Lifter
    Wood-Fired Leader 30"x10' Vortex Arch & Max Raised Flue with Rev Syrup Pan & CDL1200 RO
    https://www.facebook.com/pumpkinhillmaple/

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    6,391

    Default

    Sugar maple are regional mast seeders. They produce a lot of seeds every 3-7 years, with little in intervening seasons. Seed production is highly energy demanding. Crowns sometimes are thin the season after a heavy seed year, and there is one (extremely flawed) study suggesting sap sugar is lower in the season after seeding. Another possible reason for masting, which is not at all unusual in plants, is to reduce progeny loss to seed and seedling predation. Even some animals do the same in that they will all calve in a very short time period. Fish are similar in spawning. Just too many around for predators to eat them all.
    Last edited by DrTimPerkins; 10-20-2020 at 08:46 PM.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2020
    Location
    Westfield, MA
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    175

    Default

    I noticed the lack of seeds this year in the lone Norway in my back yard. Last year there was a ton, took two full days of raking to get them out of the lawn in the fall, then in the spring there were so many after the snow melted it felt like I didn't rake at all. I wondered if it was drought related and what the eventual impact on sugar content would be. I thought I read somewhere, probably here, that a low seed count lead to higher sugar content and am looking forward to recording numbers with my refractometer.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2013
    Location
    Brockport, NY
    Posts
    253

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    We have had zero seeds this year on any of our sugar maples, or black maples either for that matter. First year that I remember that there have not been any really. On the other hand, our silvers (seed in spring, not fall) were prolific seeders this year.
    2020 has been a strange year (brutal in some ways) all around, with only a few normal things. Even nature.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Williston, VT
    Posts
    615

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    Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
    Another possible reason for masting, which is not at all unusual in plants, is to reduce progeny loss to seed and seedling predation.
    it worked. I have small maples everywhere.
    Ken & Sherry
    Williston, VT
    16x34 Sugarhouse
    1,500 taps on high vacuum, Electric Releaser & CDL Sap Lifter
    Wood-Fired Leader 30"x10' Vortex Arch & Max Raised Flue with Rev Syrup Pan & CDL1200 RO
    https://www.facebook.com/pumpkinhillmaple/

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