BIG RAPIDS — The fall season is a favorite of many Michigan residents, thanks to the beauty that the changing of the leaves brings each year. This fall, some areas could experience a later color shift.
Due to changes in the length of daylight and changes in temperature, leaves will stop their food-making process. The chlorophyll breaks down, the green color disappears, and the yellow to orange colors become visible and give the leaves the part of their fall splendor.
Some Mecosta County residents have wondered whether this summer’s gypsy moth population boom will have any impact on the area’s fall color.
Rick Lucas, director of the Forestry Assistance Program for Mecosta and Osceola Counties, said the gypsy moth populations surge shouldn’t have an impact on this year’s colors.
“Gypsy moths will primarily feed on oaks and aspen trees, so it may have a minimal impact on the re-leafing of the aspen trees, but the oaks are going to be more of a dull color,” Lucas said.
“I do think we’re a little bit early in the development of the fall colors at this stage. There are a lot of weather-related elements that factor into the change, and I would think within the next week to 10 days it will really take off here. The way I always describe the fall season is that they’re all good, but some are just better than others.”
Lucas said the dry weather Michigan experienced this summer could impact the rate at which the leaves shift color.
“We did have a hot and dry summer early on and generally it will be weather-related activities that will impact how nice a fall season color change is,” Lucas said. “Lack of rain and humid temperatures for a prolonged time will impact the trees, more recently depending on how much moisture we get these rainy days are certainly going to have an impact on how the change develops and how vibrant it gets.”
Under optimal conditions the process of chlorophyll loss is quicker and allows the plants to resorb much of the nitrogen in the structure of the pigment molecule, according to Harvard University’s forest research. Carotenoid pigments are also lost from the plastids during aging, but some of them are retained in the plastids after the chlorophyll is removed. This produces autumn leaves with yellow colors.
In unusual cases, sometimes in winterberry holly, a fair amount of chlorophyll is left in the leaves when they fall. Such leaves are a pale green in color, or perhaps yellow-green from the mixture of chlorophyll and carotenoids.
Most intriguing are leaves that turn red, because this color is the result of the active synthesis of anthocyanin pigments just before the leaves fall from the trees. Red is the most common color of autumn leaves. Anthocyanin and chlorophyll produce brownish colors. Anthocyanins and carotenoids produce orange hues. In some plants the color production is quite uniform.
Lucas said in Michigan the maple tree is the most popular to see fall color on.
“The maple is usually everyone’s favorite this time of year for seeing the vibrant color change,” Lucas said. “You certainly can get quite a variation within that species and then even within a single tree, a lot of that is dictated by how much sunlight a tree gets and where it’s located in a given forest or area.”
Some hot spots for color in mid-Michigan are on full display along I-75, which runs north and south directly through the center of the state. Taking a drive from Caro to Frankenmuth and on to Bay City, you'll be able to see plenty of fall vibrance. You can also stop for a visit to Big Rapids' Hemlock or Mitchell Creek Park to see color flourish near the banks of the Muskegon River.
Lucas said that due to the plentiful number of maple and color-changing tree species in the state, the fall changes can be seen nearly anywhere in the state.
“Watching the trees prepare for winter is a really stunning process if you really pay attention,” Lucas said. “That physiological change is really wild, and Michigan is blessed in that it has a vast mixed deciduous forest landscape so people can go just about anywhere off of the beaten path and find some pretty exceptional colors, there’s really no exact route to take to see how stunning it is.”
For more information on the Mecosta Conservation District’s Forestry Assistance program, visit the organization’s website at www.mecostacd.org/forestry-assistance.
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October 06, 2021 at 04:12PM
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Dry, hot summer may impact fall leaf color change - The Pioneer
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