Fact or Fiction?

We have a few mature beech trees. From their girth, I estimate them as being 150 years-old. Two of them have started to produce more and more beech-mast. In fact now that the leaves have fallen, the branches look laden with the nuts.

My elderly neighbour tells me that this is a sign that they are coming to the end of their life. Is this a rural myth?

I couldn't find anything to support that theory about coming to the end of it's life.

As Argula says, it could just be a normal cycle. Or, it could be a natural fact during years of stress. Beeches don't like city life because of the excess of carbon dioxide. Nor can they deal with dryness deep down in their roots. Most trees and plants when stressed will overproduce their fruit in case conditions worsen in future.

I've never heard this one and i am sort-of a Tree Guy. There are 'mast years' when the beech produce plenty of nuts that are full, rather than being thin and lacking in substance...I recall that these are thought to be produced by patterns of weather over 2 or 3 years...

sav