A late frost in 2023 killed many of the newly formed oak leaves in the Catskill Mountains.
There is a lot going on in the woods in the spring. Sometimes all this tree activity can lead to some confusion. Have those ash trees not leafed out yet because they are being killed by the emerald ash borer or is it simply because ash is one of the last species to leaf out? Follow this link to learn how to identify the emerald ash borer. Is it snowing or is that just seed from aspen trees? Are the trees on that hillside full of brown leaves, or is it an optical illusion from flowering trees?
In late May of 2023, we got several frosts in the Catskills. It didn’t seem like much, compared to the fall's heavy frosts. However, shortly after it began to look like the recently opened oak leaves weren’t doing too well. Then entire hillsides were brown. A closer inspection confirmed that these leaves were dead.
What was going to happen to all these red and white oaks? Would they just not have leaves all summer? Not to worry, they have a contingency plan in place.
Dead first set of leaves with newly emerging second set.
Red second set.
Nearly fully formed second set.
Almost immediately a second set of leaves began to emerge. Apparently, this second set contains more anthocyanins, a pigment that comes from an abundance of sugar, giving the leaves more of a red tinge. Follow this link to a MyWoodlot blog about anthocyanins and red leaves in spring. It’s possible these anthocyanins make the leaves more frost-hardy. Perhaps they realize they can’t afford to lose these to frost. As more green-colored chlorophyll is produced, the red is replaced.
Hopefully, they will be strong enough to fight off another year of spongy moth caterpillars (formerly known as gypsy moth), although 2023 isn’t expected to be too bad in New York. We’ll see.
