This is nuts.

I'm shell shocked.

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Could have fooled me .. I had tons fall in the yard this year.

It’s always the squirrels who suffer

I blame the squirrels

Picturing that fat ass bear just eating ten pounds of acorns off the ground.

I thought the acorn crop was always high one year and low the other? Do the oaks around here not have that cycle of production?

I don't get these squirrels; they're breakin' the deal! It's like the squirrels decided to ignore me!

I'll come up with a solution to this nut conundrum, I walnut fail.

Preschool teacher here and I was unable to find any for activities this year!

Time to plant more oak trees

this is what i learned as well. They have mast years where most trees in the area produce tons of crop, then it can be sparse for years.

Me too- the top of my car would like a word with the author of that article.

Peanut again

The world is slowly becoming inhospitable from climate change due to human encroachment

whats the olde farmers almanac say about accorn harvests and how bad the winter will be

lots of accorns equals bad long winter

not many accorns equals easy mild short winter

Record drought was the driver of this. Maybe DEEP, CAES, and MDC should stop killing off the state's forests with clearcuts for a rabbit that they allow to be hunted, and worse. And, by the way, this is done as welfare for loggers. A recent DEEP log job generated $20,000 of gross income on 1600 oak sawlogs. Some of the trees were veneer trees of incredible value. DEEP exists for extraction and little else and MDC is all about revenue at the cost of forest health.

Not a single acorn fell in my yard this year. No other nuts either. Only maple seeds.

Yes - although capitalist practices are likely a bigger cause than mere encroachment.

It’s painfully obvious you know nothing about forestry. CT is overrun with “old growth” forests which provide little to no food/ habitat for native species. With no wild fires, there’s little chance for new growth, making clear cutting an essential practice.

30+ years as a practicing forest ecologist managing over 10,000 acres in multiple parcels in Connecticut, an advanced degree in silviculture, a manager of 45 hunting permittees, and I know nothing about forestry. OK.

Here are a few science facts for you, not that your mind will ever change:

The "old growth" percentage in CT is far < 1% of standing forests.

There are some old trees but no true old-growth habitat left in CT. The last virgin stand was felled in 1912.

Sugar maples and oaks can live to over 600 years, eastern hemlock to over 800 years. Since we are "overrun" with OG forests, please tell me where to find forest-interior trees half this age.

The native landscape-scale fire frequency here is about 1200 years. In Connecticut, fire systems are rare and typically limited to pitch-pine summit balds of which there are only a handful.

Non-native invasive plants, their spread caused by/accelerated by forest disturbances like clearcuts and other silvicultural systems, are compromising forest food sources while supporting massive tick populations. Both of these outcomes affect the deer that you like to kill.

Proper silviculture, by every single science-based measure, mimics local disturbance regimes. Here, such disturbance is single to multiple tree-falls. Clearcutting is completely inappropriate in the Northeast and best deployed in fire-tuned systems like the jack pine forests of Manitoba where the native landscape-scale fire frequency is 60 to 120 years and fires of up to 10,000 acres are not uncommon.

Old-growth forest harbor the full range of age classes from seedlings to centuries-old stands. They regenerated black cherry and white pine, two examples of light-requiring species that could not grow in your vision of the OG forest. Patch disturbances open up the canopy in what is known as the fluid mosaic of the forest. That's why our forests were so diverse before the chainsaw.

Etc. etc.

Well done.

poor kids, their future is going to be rough.

No acorns no ticks

Can I be your friend? I love learning about trees and how forests change depending on their age. I know there’s a few “old growth” forests, which one would you suggest visiting to really appreciate the difference compared to a “new” growth forest? Is there any chance theres pockets of original growth forest in areas like Meriden mountain for example that just are not officially considered old growth?