Early spring?

You may have noticed the temperature lately. Insanely warm for the season. An early spring has some consequences on the natural flora and fauna in our area, both good and bad. Allow me to introduce you to a new word:

Phenology

The study of cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena, especially in relation to climate and plant and animal life.

I can’t possibly go into, much less contemplate, all of the outcomes of abnormally early seasonal transition. I’m not a phenologist (not even sure if those exist), but I am someone who pays attention to these sequences in my region.

Here are a few of my early thoughts on this year’s potentially very early spring here in Michigan:

Oak wilt is a serious disease here in our country. Models that give a pre-determined cut off date for when to stop pruning oaks were not formulated with 60-degree days in February and March in mind. And so using the “April 1st” deadline here in Michigan ought not to apply this year.

Other methods focus on the accumulation of heat as a metric for tracking insect development over the course of time. This pertains to oak wilt because a certain beetle is a vector for oak wilt.

It is known, by X-amount of “growing degree days”, such and such insect tends to develop into it’s X-stage, for example. These methods are a bit more precise, but without getting too into the weeds, they still aren’t bulletproof. I saw some models do not begin tracking heat accumulation until March 1st, which again, doesn’t account for far-above-average February temperatures.

Due to the insane heat for this time, we stopped pruning oak trees about a month earlier than we normally do. Two days after we announced we’d be rescheduling our oak projects, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources echoed a similar notion, urging arborists and homeowners to stop pruning oaks much earlier this year.

Hopefully we see more of that, but I have a hunch that the number of oak wilt cases in my region will increase this year :/

On Jack’s street, there are multiple silver maples in full bloom on February 27th. That’s insane. As I drive around, I see even more.

Silver maples are primarily wind pollinated. They flower after pretty minimal accumulation of heat.

After fertilization and seed/fruit development begins, and given the time of year, we are still likely to get a handful of frosts. These tender and less developed tissues are very susceptible to damage by cold. Once the stems begin to grow on the twigs, they too are vulnerable to the cold.

Trees have mechanisms to survive these incidences, obviously, but they can represent minor setbacks in that year’s growth and reproduction. And that too has an impact on the wildlife that depend on those tree parts.

Speaking of reproduction, how about fruit trees? With a significantly early start to spring, and the possibility of frosts still appearing at the “normal times”, many fruit trees in the region are at risk of having a damaged crop this year.

For identical reasons to the silver maples, these tender tissues can be nuked by the cold. What happens if, let’s say, Michigan cherry trees are fertilized and fruit production begins only to get zapped by a cold snap?

Or god forbid, the apples?!

Some stuff to think about.

On a different note, one of the articles I teased last newsletter has been published in the Tree Care Industry Magazine’s March issue, you can check that out here. It’ll be up on the Tree First website in a few days.

Talk to ya later,

Tree First forever