White oaks have been dropping for weeks in my yard in 4B

 

It's early, but so was leaf out and bud break this year. Drought and weevils also play into aborted and early drops. My yard trees run a full 2-4 weeks ahead of the mountain trees, also.

I often struggle to find white oaks that are still in play for the first part of archery season. They are usually pretty well cleaned up by then and the deer are usually transitioning to chestnut oaks and then into reds in my area.

 

I'm in 3D as well. White oak in the yard has been dropping for a couple weeks, and the deer are wasting no time cleaning them up. The couple red oaks are dropping a few here and there.

 

5A here, been walking on marbles for close to month now but I think that’s pretty normal for me.

 

4C here. They have been dropping in my yard for a week or two. I noticed three deer feasting on them yesterday morning. Reminded me of a hoover vacuum going across the carpet.

 

Heard them hitting on my pavilion roof this past week. Saw the deer are getting their winter coats this week and I saw a hard horn buck. Leaves changing. Everything seems a bit early to me.

 

5A and 4B have been raining whites for a couple weeks now, reds on lower portions of sidehills were starting to drop last weekend. I'm not seeing hardly any acorns anywhere on top this year.

 

Pin oaks are also dropping in 5D

 

3D checking it. Can confirm... Quiet mornings it sounds like it's raining acorns constantly on the mountain. The squirrels seem to be doing a number as well. I keep telling my daughter it looks like monkeys shaking the branches when they are going nuts no pun intended.

 

Seeing some red and white oaks dropping acorns here in 2B. A lot of small, stunted growth ones too.

 

We have some of both the red and white oak acorns both dropping and still on the trees in our areas of 2F and 2G. I haven't been in enough areas to know how uniform the acorns are but I am sure we lost some of this year's white acorns and some of next year's red oak acorns to some later frosts last spring.

It is common for the trees to shed some acorns, especially during dry weather, before they are fully developed to allow more of the tree's energy to be used on the remaining acorns. It happens to some extent every year the trees produce. It frequently happens with fruit and other nut trees too.

Dick Bodenhorn

 

The Black Oak in my daughter's front yard is loaded.

 

 

Years ago, you could hunt the white oaks when they were dropping. Usually for the entire first week, sometimes into the second week. Nowadays, they’ve usually all have dropped before October 1st, and with a lot of deer, they’re cleaned up. Everything runs early now.

The last ten years, if you have a white oak that’s loaded up, bears will climb it early on and strip it clean. There’ll be small limbs and branches scattered everywhere at the base of the tree.

 

Took a walk yesterday to set a blind and ladder stand in two of my SRA spots. One landowner has a giant red and white oak in her backyard. Last year, neither produced acorns. This year, I was happy to see both are producing. The red is dropping some now. The white oak is not dropping yet, which is good. Looking at the acorns, they look like they have a few more weeks to go then they should be dropping around the SRA opener. I set a blind 25 yards from the white oak. Since it is in a mowed area, the deer should frequent it for easy pickings of fallen acorns.

 

Found these yesterday. Looking poor on top of mountain. Paw paws are very spotty too.