On May 1, 12:37*pm, "Martin Rowley"
wrote:
F'cst hot dry summer?
The Oak has been out for some time now, but still waiting for the
Ash
to bread bud.
So expect only a splash.

... from "Red Sky at Night, Shepherd's Delight" [Paul Marriott], where
he analyses many such 'country' sayings, there are several which link
the leafing behaviour of the Oak and Ash.

"When the oak comes out before the ash, there will be fine weather in
harvest; but when the ash comes out before the oak, the harvest will
be wet": this was tested over a period of 122 years for data in
Norfolk. The results come out between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 correct
depending on the sequence, i.e., no useful signal.

Various couplets are given which mention the word 'choke' (meaning
drought: country roads dry/dusty), e.g. ...
" When the ash is out before the oak, then we may expect a choke; when
the oak is out before the ash, then we may expect a splash "; note
this is the *reverse* of the implied indication above - oak before ash
implying rain, ash before oak implying dry: this too produced
lacklustre returns, with a rating of 'Poor' (17-32% correct).

One maxim which also contradicts the oft-quoted implication is:-

" If the oak is out before the ash, twill be a summer of wet and
splash; but if the ash is before the oak, twill be a summer of fire
and smoke "; The first part (oak before ash = wet summer) had a
success rate of 'Fair' (33-48%); the second part (ash before oak =
dry) rated 'Poor' (as above).

But we don't need even these analyses to emphasise how wary of such we
should be.

From the Woodland Trust site at:-http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/

From 2007 data for Ash and Oak (pedunculate) we have:...

Average leaf-budburst Ash = 21st April
Average leaf-budburst Oak = 8th April
That is, 'Oak before Ash' .... implies a 'splash'?

May, June & July 2007 were three very wet months - the wettest such
sequence in the England & Wales Precipitation series. So, was that a
'splash' or a 'soak' :-)

I don't see any reason why well-rooted, healthy trees should be able
to *forecast* a season ahead. They respond to last year's events, and
immediate weather 'input', such as sunshine, air & soil temperature &
soil moisture.

Martin you are guilty of mixing your metaphor with your data. An heady
drink if never there was.

You are not interested in overall rainfall data if the thing you are
watching out for is an agricultural conundrum. What you need to know
is in the locale for which the specific is applied is: "What are the
chances of a rainfall ruining a good harvest."

In other words can you be certain of getting heavy rain in the five or
so days in the middle of June when the hay has to be dry and can you
get the wheat and barley in dry enough to make good beer and flour all
through next year.

If the hay gets wet it will overheat and be a fire hazard and if it is
wet enough to go rotten, it will cause problems in dairy cows.

Wet wheat won't thrash well and will not fetch a good price at
auction. The few days these things depend on mean feast or tragedy to
a farming community and no ammount of rainfall or drought mean a damn
after the apposite occasions.

The required saw will allow the farmer to know what to look out for
and plan for worst case scenarios. Something you might think in this
hi tech age we can take for granted but in the days when an whole
village would be employed to get the harvests in for the surrounding
farms, things were a lot different.

If it looked a wet harvest season it would pay the local farmers to
bus in townies or arrange some other emergency measure. No small cost
to the landholder.

Then there are problems to look out for in a wet year before the
harvest. Long stalked crops would fall over a lot easier and be
susceptible to other blights. Again something just an inkling of a
possibility would give a good husbandman an edge maybe just enought to
keep a day's march on the weather.

The work involved isn't a pastorale by any means. Or wasn't.