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  Re: Acorns and mast years
From: SelbyHort at aol.com on 2000.11.11 at 19:10:29(5676)
No shortage of acorns in Vermont! It was a very wet summer here.

To further Steve's message: I once heard a talk at a conference about tree
flowering and fruiting in Mexican tropical forests. Via a long term study,
they have mapped heavy flowering and fruiting events in a regular cycle that
tightly corresponds to the El Nino cycles. Many Meso American and Caribbean
tropical forests grow in areas with distinct wet and dry seasons (similar to
Florida's climate). Heavy tree flowering and fruiting is noted after a dryer
than normal "wet" season. Seems in the dry sunny years, the forests have more
sun, less cloud cover and therefore produce more leaves and build up
reserves. Then trees flower and fruit more heavily the next year. During
cloudy, rainy cycles, flowering and fruiting is greatly reduced because there
are fewer sunny days. This 6-7 year cycle may indeed also correspond with
Julius' mention of a 6 year cycle for owls in Trinidad.

Donna Atwood

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