Trees that are not feeling very well change color earlier than healthy trees, so the drought could very well be the reason. My maples and most other tree species are still fully green, and my climate here in sweden are similar to that of southwestern Alaska. But there has been no drought here, it has actually been raining even more than normal.

Some trees, oaks for example, measures the daytime to find out when to prepare for winter. Other trees seem to go only by temperature. Night frost will convince a lot of trees.

When the leaves goes colorful the tree is sucking back sugar and other valuable stuff from them, to store inside before they shed rest of the leaf. So I guess you can't really say that the trees are gone to sleep yet.

Your tree is slightly ahead (about 1-2 weeks) I would not worry. Since your in west NY now is the time when the days are starting to turn to damp, cool, and less sunny days. The usual time slot of fall setting in is September for you guys. The south part of northeast usually is in October and mid Atlantic-south east is about Late October. I see some maples have a few orange leaves now, that is how it usually is until day light savings time. My dogwood will change around early October, so i would admire it as long as i can. As long as you see buds on the trees that are dark green or light brown you won't have to worry.

usually a tree goes to sleep or is dormant when the leaves begin the color changing process or after buds are set

Our local evening news did a report tonight on our early changing leaves' color. A local Arborist gave his assessment on what's going on.

Here is a link that might be useful: WGRZ

He claims it's drought-related, however, and I can only speak for myself here, but I have been irrigating at least twice weekly since March.

Not to sound cocky, because I don't feel cocky about what I'm about to say... but I can't see how MY trees are starting to turn color due to the drought, because I busted my @ss through 2 seasons to keep them happy.... unless, I suppose, my regular watering didn't rise to the level of canceling out our 8 inch rain deficit.

Believe it or not some trees are still stressed when watered with non-rain water then tack on heat stress...all translates into not so great root development for new trees.

I don't know about nitrogen levels in well water though.

In the end I think it has to do with heat stress in relation to what the plants are acclimated to.

The thing is though that my trees don't look stressed, well, other than the color change. lol They are COVERED in buds for next year. Almost to the point of looking like they're suffering a bud disease, like a child would covered in chicken pox. Plus, depending on their size when planted, they've grown anywhere from 1 foot to 3 1/2 feet their first 5 months in the ground this year so I believe they all have decent root growth growing on. Unless that isn't a reliable indicator of root growth.

However, I concede to you Whaas, because one, you know a lot more than I do, and two,because trees were not made to be supplemental watered by people, but by Mother Nature herself, and just as breastfeeding is best for a baby, so is rain for trees. I totally get that.

Oh and all the trees I received are from zone 7 if I remember correctly. (Forest Farm) Which is 1 zone warmer than I am.

I guess I was just hoping this wasn't drought related, but evidently it is. :( Uuugh.

It depends on what you mean by "sleep". The leaves change color as the chlorophyll (which is green) breaks down, and once the chlorophyll is gone, the leaves are no longer photosynthesizing. However, the tree is not completely inactive. In most cases, the roots continue to grow. The shoots are not fully hardened off when the leaves drop, so those tissues must be doing something as well. I would say most trees are not fully dormant until several weeks after leaf fall.

Alex

Then too, different species prepare for winter in different ways. To grossly oversimplify, some trees dry out their above-ground tissues to make them less likely to suffer burst cell walls from freezing temps. Others, notably conifers, invest energy and resources into making odd chemicals in their sap, things that don't readily freeze solid. That's one reason why conifers so often have sticky, resinous sap. So this becomes a semantics question; What do we really mean by dormant?

+oM

I have been noticing many leaves falling from my Norway Maples and my young Ohio Buckeye has many leaves that have turned orange and are falling. One of my young Burr Oaks has leaves that are a dark, almost bronzed color.

The drought has been rough here 60 miles west of Lake Michigan, but the beginnings of fall have finally arrived, along with some rain in the past couple of weeks. Still, I made an effort all summer to water the newly planted items, and they have made it into September. Yay!

vince

I was cleaning out an email box and rain across some oldies that I'd sent friends exactly a year ago, and I'd mentioned that my sugar and red maples were already turning and shedding leaves. They were further ahead of season last year than this year! Memory is a funny things. My buckeye trees are turned and ratty looking, but then again they are very sensitive to poor growing seasons and often do that when stressed. My sassafras are starting to turn a bit and the liriodendron for sure. We are actually not still ahead of the season in our area anymore. Things seem to be back on schedule, if you can say they ever are.