Originally Posted By: fdcg27
"Expert" has it wrong.
Many fruiting trees tend toward alternate year bearing and the genus Quercus is no exception.
Another factor is that the many species of these trees flower at different times and those that flower very early may have their developing fruits killed off by hard freezes while those that flower later may escape this frost damage.
We have a bumper crop of acorns on our Burr Oaks this year (Quercus Macropcarpon IIRC), while I'm not sure what the neighbor's white oaks have (Quercus Alba).
We do have lots of hazelnuts, which are more of a shrub than a tree. I planted these years ago thinking that we could harvest the nuts, kind of like I planted cherries years ago with the same idea.
The squirrels very efficiently harvest all of the hazelnuts while the birds are very fond of both sweet and sour cherries.
We end up with none of either.
http://blogs.massaudubon.org/yourgreatoutdoors/about-those-acorns/
Oaks seem to sync up in an area and they all produce a huge crop in the same year, then very little or nothing for a few years which starves most of the nut eaters. Our butternuts seem to do the same. The idea is that they produce far more nuts than can be consumed that one year, and they have the additional benefit of squirrels caching/planting some since they can't eat them all.
