Lab group A12 awakens at 9:00am on Sunday March 30th to begin their trek across campus to complete the Phenology Walk.
An exhilarated Cate Bilbe poses by Red Oak 615
Sugar Maple 618
Lots of buds present on the Sugar Maple, and even some bud breaking can be seen by the tiny string-like pieces coming from the bud in the picture above. The buds seemed to be breaking on at ~35-40% of the Sugar Maple’s buds. No leaves were present on the tree, or around the trunk, although the buds allow a clear sign that this is a Sugar Maple.
White Oak 761
The White Oak was easy to identify as the leaves from last season are still hanging on, few, practically none, have fallen yet. There was no bud breakage yet.
Walk Findings:
After finishing the Phenology walk, there was definitely not as much progress in the phenophases as I thought there was going to be. For one, I thought the warm days that have been coming and going would encourage the trees to be farther ahead than they were. The only trees that we spotted breaking buds on was Sugar Maple 618 and Red Maple 280. Most others, including the White Oak, which still looks just as it did throughout all of Winter, Red Oak, Norway Maple have yet to show any signs of bud breakage.
I read an article that discussed how the understory plants vs. over-story trees are being affected by climate change. The article explains that recent studies show that over-story plants are twice as likely to bloom in warmer conditions brought on by climate change than the trees in the over-story. Additionally, as you move North, the understory is more heavily impacted most likely due to its extremely fragile nature.