GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – At a time of year when most of our plants are usually dormant, some trees are showing signs of life around Green Bay.
And this time of year, wintry weather is always still on the table.
But Green Bay city forester Brian Pelot says most of our trees aren’t in any real danger from any late-season swings.
“Trees — native trees, especially — have evolved to deal with ups and downs of temperature and moisture levels. So, so far so good. A little bit of concern what’s gonna come in the next couple weeks, in a month, as things really start to wake up. If we do get some leaf development early and get some cold weather, we could get some setbacks.”
He adds that the setback for most native species isn’t usually too severe. Even if early leaflets do end up seeing a frost or freeze, he says trees can produce a second round of leaflets to make up any damaged or lost foliage.
And there are some signs that our trees may be on track to leaf out early than normal. This is a look at something called leaf-out anomaly.
Basically, it’s a look at certain types of early-leaf deciduous species, and compares the start of their leafing process to when it normally occurs. So for example, this year, the gulf coast was running a few days behind normal.
Head up into the mid-south and it was running a few days ahead of normal. But even farther north, we’re starting to see the species they track leafing out already up into central Illinois.
That is running nearly three weeks ahead of schedule, thanks in large part to how warm it’s been this winter across the Midwest. And if this trend continues to expand north over the next few weeks, there is a chance we some leaf buds appearing earlier than usual as well.
Thankfully. Pelot says this wouldn’t endanger the trees either — they’re used to our weather. But it’s just even more evidence of the remarkable winter warmth we’ve had this year.
Comments