A few trees have begun the transition into full color, including a sugar maple on the grounds of the Yale School of Music in Norfolk. (MICHAEL MCANDREWS / HARTFORD COURANT / September 22, 2009)
The growing season of 2009 will long be remembered for its stark contrasts. It started with an exceptionally wet spring and early summer and ended with late-summer daytime temperatures in the 80s that often dropped into the 40s at night.
That prelude to fall — today is the first full day of autumn — has produced conditions that foresters predict will transform Connecticut's forests into an exceptional blaze of color, just in time for the Columbus Day weekend that begins Oct. 10.
Pictures: Best Places For Viewing Fall Foliage In Connecticut
"When you get the kind of days that we've been having lately — with daytime highs in the 70s or above and then almost freezing temperatures at night — the color change is accelerated," says state forester Christopher Martin. "We're predicting that the heart of the leaf-viewing country, the northwest and northeast corners of the state, will peak by Columbus Day weekend, with the shoreline country turning about a week later."
Trees, Martin says, are best understood as columns of molecules organized to "vertically convey water and sugar." After trees bud in the spring, moisture carried up from the roots mixes in leaves with sunlight and carbon dioxide to form a sugary byproduct called glucose. That process — sunlight, water and carbon dioxide combining to make sugar — is photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is what produces the green in leaves. While the weather is warm and wet, that sugary green dominates the natural pigments in leaves — called carotenoids and anthocyanins — reducing them to a colorless liquid.
"But when the days grow shorter and the nights turn cool," Martin says, "the sugar in the tree and leaves can't rise as much and circulate, which allows the red, orange and yellow pigments to become visible."
The variation in color in fall foliage, he says, results from different transition speeds and chemistry in each species. The leaves of tulip poplars and birches, for example, quickly turn yellow and then die, Martin says, while the dominant maples and ashes experience a gradual change from glucose to pigments and thus turn yellow to orange to bright maroon. Oaks turn late, transitioning from red to purple-brown.
Reader Pictures: Send Us Your Favorite Fall Foliage Photos
"A lot of foresters suspected early in the season that this would be a peak foliage year because the early rains set up the trees with a lot of moisture and thus sugar," Martin says. "And then these recent weeks of warm days and cold nights sent a strong signal to the trees to start turning."
The only drawback to a wet year like this one, Martin says, is that the extra moisture encourages leaf fungi such as tar spot and anthracnose, which can cause leaves to prematurely brown and then die. Foresters noticed a lot of anthracnose this year, he says.
"But you would have to have a magnifying glass on every leaf to really notice the impact. The slightly increased fungus growth because of the wet spring and early summer will not impact the splendor of the foliage for the average leaf-peeper."
The health of Connecticut's annual foliage blaze is an important economic indicator for the state. Randy Fiveash, director of tourism at Connecticut's Commission on Culture and Tourism, says the fall is second only to summer travel as a generator of income for the state's $9.4 billion tourism industry.
And October's leaf-peeper season may be especially important this year, when a variety of studies have shown that the poor economy is encouraging consumers to take more "staycations" closer to home.
"People are still going to travel, but they will be traveling a shorter distance," Fiveash says. "This is where Connecticut enjoys the natural advantage of being in the backyard of two major population centers, New York and Boston. Weekend travelers there know that they don't have to get very far to see great foliage."
But one grizzled veteran in the heart of Litchfield County's leaf-peeping terrain believes that all of the expert talk among foresters about "prime" foliage years is bunk.
"Have you ever read a newspaper article about fall foliage that doesn't quote a forester saying that this year will be great?" says Jody Bronson, the forest manager at Norfolk's 5,500-acre Great Mountain Forest, who was taking a break on Tuesday afternoon while shaving an ax handle from a cured length of ironwood.
"Have you ever seen a bad foliage year? Of course not. The maples and the ashes know what to do. They take the year, whatever the weather was, and turn it into a brilliant fall. All of these explanations about it are just an excuse for some forester to get his name in the paper."
That prelude to fall — today is the first full day of autumn — has produced conditions that foresters predict will transform Connecticut's forests into an exceptional blaze of color, just in time for the Columbus Day weekend that begins Oct. 10.
Pictures: Best Places For Viewing Fall Foliage In Connecticut
"When you get the kind of days that we've been having lately — with daytime highs in the 70s or above and then almost freezing temperatures at night — the color change is accelerated," says state forester Christopher Martin. "We're predicting that the heart of the leaf-viewing country, the northwest and northeast corners of the state, will peak by Columbus Day weekend, with the shoreline country turning about a week later."
Trees, Martin says, are best understood as columns of molecules organized to "vertically convey water and sugar." After trees bud in the spring, moisture carried up from the roots mixes in leaves with sunlight and carbon dioxide to form a sugary byproduct called glucose. That process — sunlight, water and carbon dioxide combining to make sugar — is photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is what produces the green in leaves. While the weather is warm and wet, that sugary green dominates the natural pigments in leaves — called carotenoids and anthocyanins — reducing them to a colorless liquid.
"But when the days grow shorter and the nights turn cool," Martin says, "the sugar in the tree and leaves can't rise as much and circulate, which allows the red, orange and yellow pigments to become visible."
The variation in color in fall foliage, he says, results from different transition speeds and chemistry in each species. The leaves of tulip poplars and birches, for example, quickly turn yellow and then die, Martin says, while the dominant maples and ashes experience a gradual change from glucose to pigments and thus turn yellow to orange to bright maroon. Oaks turn late, transitioning from red to purple-brown.
Reader Pictures: Send Us Your Favorite Fall Foliage Photos
"A lot of foresters suspected early in the season that this would be a peak foliage year because the early rains set up the trees with a lot of moisture and thus sugar," Martin says. "And then these recent weeks of warm days and cold nights sent a strong signal to the trees to start turning."
The only drawback to a wet year like this one, Martin says, is that the extra moisture encourages leaf fungi such as tar spot and anthracnose, which can cause leaves to prematurely brown and then die. Foresters noticed a lot of anthracnose this year, he says.
"But you would have to have a magnifying glass on every leaf to really notice the impact. The slightly increased fungus growth because of the wet spring and early summer will not impact the splendor of the foliage for the average leaf-peeper."
The health of Connecticut's annual foliage blaze is an important economic indicator for the state. Randy Fiveash, director of tourism at Connecticut's Commission on Culture and Tourism, says the fall is second only to summer travel as a generator of income for the state's $9.4 billion tourism industry.
And October's leaf-peeper season may be especially important this year, when a variety of studies have shown that the poor economy is encouraging consumers to take more "staycations" closer to home.
"People are still going to travel, but they will be traveling a shorter distance," Fiveash says. "This is where Connecticut enjoys the natural advantage of being in the backyard of two major population centers, New York and Boston. Weekend travelers there know that they don't have to get very far to see great foliage."
But one grizzled veteran in the heart of Litchfield County's leaf-peeping terrain believes that all of the expert talk among foresters about "prime" foliage years is bunk.
"Have you ever read a newspaper article about fall foliage that doesn't quote a forester saying that this year will be great?" says Jody Bronson, the forest manager at Norfolk's 5,500-acre Great Mountain Forest, who was taking a break on Tuesday afternoon while shaving an ax handle from a cured length of ironwood.
"Have you ever seen a bad foliage year? Of course not. The maples and the ashes know what to do. They take the year, whatever the weather was, and turn it into a brilliant fall. All of these explanations about it are just an excuse for some forester to get his name in the paper."
