DIXFIELD — A full palette of autumnal color is starting to peep through diminishing chlorophyll veils in hardwood foliage this week in Western Maine.
But the noticeably-changing hues don’t herald an earlier-than-normal fall season despite a mild winter and sap-tapping season that began here in February, Gale Ross said early Wednesday afternoon.
Barring any direct hits from hurricanes or tropical storms in the weeks prior to peak leaf color, the state’s foliage spokeswoman said she believes conditions are ripe for a spectacular season.
“Actually, we’re having one of our better seasons this year,” Ross said at the Maine Department of Conservation in Augusta.
“We had the good summer with significant rainfall, but not the soaking rain. And our forest pathologist says that conditions are going to be better than they were last year.
“If you remember last year, the foliage sort of dried up and dropped and it wasn’t very spectacular,” Ross said.
In Central Maine, she said nighttime temperatures have been dropping into the 50s this month.
“We have actually been in the high 50s, but that is what will ultimately be the decision maker when we start getting into the colder nights,” Ross said.
Despite the seemingly early onset of color change in areas, the department won’t begin tracking it any time soon on its fall foliage website at www.maine.gov/doc/foliage/.
“We’re not starting our fall foliage reporting until the second week in September,” Ross said.
Warm days and cold nights, along with waning daylight hours and the reduced intensity of sunlight, starts slowing and halting chlorophyll production, revealing natural colors in leaves.
“If you don’t have the cold nights, which we didn’t last year, it would have slowed down the progression,” Ross said.
“When we hit mid-October (last year), things just started drying up. It was amazing.”
She said foliage color “hung on well past the foliage reporting season” in Maine’s coastal regions, but one ranger told her the color wasn’t worth having families drive up from out-of-state to view it.
“It was a very disappointing season,” she said.
Ross said she received a report Tuesday from the forest pathologist stating that fall foliage color is on track in northern Maine for the first of September and will progress from north to south into the second week in October for the rest of the state and beyond.
But on Wednesday, Ross said, “I can look out here and see tinges and hints of colors, but nothing colorific yet.”
She said the Maine foliage map indicating color progression on the department’s website was updated Tuesday to completely green. That indicates current foliage change at zero to 10 percent.
“It’s green because our trees are green still,” Ross said. “Typically, we see a little bit of color in northern Maine by that first report, but not necessarily.”
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- Leaf drop and foliage changes are already under way in western Maine as seen in East Dixfield. However, state foliage spokeswoman Gale Ross said Wednesday in Augusta that tar spot disease is causing maple leaves to drop prematurely.
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- Fall colors were already showing Wednesday morning on this towering maple beside the East Dixfield Post Office.
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- As chlorophyll production slows to a halt this time of year, it’s already revealing fall color in staghorn sumacs seen Wednesday beside Route 2 in Mexico near the Androscoggin River.
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