Over the past few weeks I've taken a bazillion calls here at the extension office related to discoloration of foliage on White oaks trees. Okay, a bazillion may be exaggerating, but only slightly. Okay, maybe more than slightly, but a whole bunch of calls, or at least a dozen. Regardless of the actual number of calls taken, it was enough to motivate me into going the "extension agent extra mile". What is "going the extra mile" for an extension agent you ask? Grabbing the camera and GPS unit, filling up the tank with $3/gallon gas and scouring the county in search of brown, wilted White oaks? Nope. We're way too efficient for that type of excessive effort here at the extension office. Instead, I simply requested that one of the callers bring in a leaf sample to the office! Now, I know what you're thinking. If I had been super efficient, I would have asked him to email a photo...sort of impersonal style of service though, don't you think? Besides, expecting a client to produce a half decent quality photo is like asking my kids to eat collard greens. Just not gonna happen! So, thanks to the determination and persistence of John Q. Citizen, I was able to produce the above photo. After observing the sample in the photo, I launched a simple google search for "brown round things on oak leaves", which pulled up a search result for Jumping Oak Galls. That led to a plethora of information related to these interesting creatures, including this you tube video. Check it out here.
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