Acorn "worms"

[Dr. Tad Hussein Winslow]

I really don't see how deer make a living sometimes - 9 out of 10 acorns in the woods I pick up and bite into are "rotten", with a #@#% grub in it. What are these, how common, and do the deer eat these rotten ones anyway, grub and all? Is it the case that deer are able to eat of lot of the acorns when they first fall, before the insects invade them? Or do the insects invade the acorn and plant the grub while the acorn is still up in the tree, before the deer can eat them? Is it like this everywhere? I guess if the deer eat them anyway, they're getting their protein requirement from the grub... ??

Same goes for pecans, but only about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the pecans seem to be ruined by some kind of damned insect.

 

[dennishoddy]

They get into the acorns while in the tree. I don't know what the criteria is for them to be so prolific at times. Could be a wet summer, dry summer, cyclic in nature, I don't know.
Pecan trees around our area got a fungus this year, from being wet too long at the wrong time. Most of them are rotten on the inside, and get the same worms as the oaks.

 

[oOVEGGIEOo]

We get that in our pecans, but haven't noticed in the oaks. But there are so many oaks on the lease. Last year the crop was insane...I don't think they ever touched corn. They were plenty happy just laying in one spot eating acorns all day.

 

[criticalbass]

I suspect to the deer protein is protein. Checked a bunch of acorns on my lease and found no worms. It's east of Davis, OK.

In pecans, worms are cyclic. Some years lots, some years almost none. CB

 

[Kingmarine]

None of the acorns we cracked open last weekend had anything unusual about them...