Are California’s oak trees dying?
A frost damaged oak tree. BERKELEY – In spite of relatively abundant rainfall this past winter, the leaves of many oak trees in the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range are missing or turning brown. UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension natural resources specialist Douglas McCreary theorizes that early spring weather conditions are to blame and expects the trees to recover. “Above all, landowners should not assume the trees are dead and cut them down just because they have lost their foliage,” McCreary said. “Next year it will probably be very difficult to tell which trees lost their leaves early, and which remained foliated late into the season.” In recent weeks, people have reported that oak trees normally fully leafed-out at this time of year are almost completely bare or have just isolated tufts of new foliage. Others have observed oaks partially or completely covered with dead, brown foliage. In some cases, entire hillsides now have oak forests with few, if any, leaves. McCreary confirmed th
