I've got three mature P. strobus growing around the house, and they've all been dropping an unusual amount of cones over the past couple of months. Maybe this is normal, but I can't recall experiencing anything quite like this. Many are very small and look like they may have withered on the vine so to speak before dropping. The picture is representative of what I'm seeing whenever we get a bit of wind.
Mostly aborted cones, presumably due to poor pollination. The full-size green ones could have been cut by squirrels, or broken by strong winds.
Resin
The larger green cones will periodically fall, but in much smaller numbers than what I'm seeing with the aborted cones this year. Would weather be the main (only?) explanation for poor pollination? Could a single event cause such an increase in the cones failure to pollinate?
Yep; a late frost during pollination is a classic case.
Resin
I don't mean to draw this out, but we had a very late frost (with 9" of snow) May 2014. Would this be about the right time frame as a probable cause for the large number of aborted cones I'm seeing? Also, is there a link between the large number of aborted cones and this spring's abundant production of pollen cones I showed on an earlier post?
If you showed an image of pollen cones earlier, you should be able to check the date on that versus the very late May frost date - even though you state that was last year...
I don't mean to draw this out, but we had a very late frost (with 9" of snow) May 2014. Would this be about the right time frame as a probable cause for the large number of aborted cones I'm seeing? Also, is there a link between the large number of aborted cones and this spring's abundant production of pollen cones I showed on an earlier post?
