Early Acorn Drop...Question

[MilkweedManiac]

I’m a bit of a novice in knowing a great deal about nut trees, sometimes Google knows my question and sometimes it doesn’t.

That said, my little girl and I walked down a road of red oaks next door and collected several green red oak acorns that are dropping at high rates.

After soaking for 12 hours, the large group shown floated and the smaller group sank.

As you can see , many of these acorns are of decent size (the smaller ones were fun for the little one to find). Yet, when I float tested in a 5-gallon bucket, I was shocked that 90% or so floated.

I carefully combed through some of the nicer floaters and see no cracks or wormholes, and they feel quite dense.

Question 1 - is the reason for this because the nut is not fully formed?

Question 2 - do acorns “ripen” after they prematurely fall, or is it stuck in an immature state when it falls early?

 

[FarmerDan]

I'm going to take a crack at this. I love oak trees and acorns. I've tried to read as much scientific literature about acorns as I can find. Unfortunately, the fate of the world doesn't depend on acorn science, politics hardly knows what tree produces an acorn, and there's little economic value to an acorn. So, we make up stuff! Maybe that's what I'm doing here.

A tree under stress, be it oak, apple, maple or some other species will shed whatever it can if it's under stress. There are exceptions, but let's assume that basic rule applies.
To make fruit requires a boatload of nutrients and energy. In survival mode, a tree like an oak will say, me first! Off with you blood sucking acorns. The tree will produce an enzyme which weakens the connection of the acorn to the body of the the tree, and down it comes, ready or not - the acorn that is.

Question 1:
I think those prematurely shed acorns float because the meat of the acorn hasn't matured. They probably are quite dense, but that's only because of the mositure content, not because of the Think of a soybean pod. The pod might look good, but are there beans in the pod, how many, and how big?

Question 2:
Your question was, will they continue to mature? I say, nope. They are finished.

Good questions but this is all speculation on my part.

 

[MilkweedManiac]

Your theory seems very sound, thank you for taking the time.