? about maples

Hi, I haven't been on this forum for awhile. My BIL asked why maples only seed every other year. I was unaware of that - if it is so. The two I had in my yard seemed to seed every year. Anyone have info on that? Thanks Lyn

I noticed our soft Maples seed a lot, but the hard Maples in my front yard hardly seed at all. The one year they did seed, I was pulling seedlings all summer. Still finding some two years later. We've lived here for 18 years and that was the first time the old twins did that. I thought at first it was their "swan song" and they were going to die on me, but I was wrong. I hope they don't seed again for a long time. There must have been a million seedlings, no kidding. The picture was taken last November of the old twins.

I think they'll typically seed every year, but some plants can go through cycles where some years will have lots and lots of seeds and the next year will be more sparse.

Not sure it is consistently this way but we had a very dry summer last year and my maples put out alot more seeds then I had seen in prior years. It may be a survival thing. They all struggled thru the drought. Just a thought...

Dennis, that does sound reasonable.

There's also big advantages in infrequent seeding; it means there's nothing much eats your seeds as whatever did, died of starvation the previous blank years.

Also quite possible they are not struggling from the drought, but using the drought as an opportunity to get their seeds into ground where a lot of the other competing plants might have died. There's never been any hard scientific evidence for "swan song" seed production by expiring trees - it's no more than a popular myth.

Resin

Good to know Resin. My big Maples are the cornerstone of our property. They are so old and gnarley but hang in there. There's going to be a lot of huge trucks passing by our house this summer while they build 400' windturbines all around us. I'm worried the heavy equipment passing by will compact the soil and kill the trees since they are close to our gravel road. Windturbines are bad enough in a residential neighborhood, but if their construction damages my hedgerow and old Maples, I will go crazy.

That doesn't sound good. How far is the road from the trees, and how much is it used at the moment?

Resin

The old trees are on the property line. There is the normal easement area between the trees and the road. I've been told these trucks are some of the biggest and heaviest allowed on the highway. I have noticed that the old trees put all their energy in branches growing towards the house and not over the road. Maybe they are so used to heavy farm equipment passing by over the years the trees stopped trying to spread in that direction. There are some branches over the easement area, but they are short. Could a big corporation possibly see the the potential damage their trucks could cause and widen the road towards the farmer's field on the other side? They probably don't give a hoot, but you never know. Our County Board and road commissioners are trying to set up rules for the turbine company to follow, but once those big boys start construction there will be no stopping them. The footprints they are going to leave around here will be devastating for years to come.

Yes, definitely worth asking for demanding a temporary access route well clear of your trees. The whole idea of wind turbines is to reduce carbon dioxide production; damaging (and possibly killing) trees in the process of installation won't help that at all.

Resin

I will be taking lots of "before" pictures in case I need to to show proof of damage.