Why do maples turn red

Eulalia Palomo has been a professional writer since Prior to taking up writing full time she has worked as a landscape artist and organic gardener. Palomo holds a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies from Boston University.

She travels widely and has spent over six years living abroad. Why Are Maple Leaves Red? Home Guides Garden Gardening. By Eulalia Palomo. Related Articles. Green to Red Maple trees are deciduous, shedding all their leaves in winter. What causes this display of color?

Fall color actually starts during the lazy days of high summer. We cannot see this process. We cannot hear it or feel it. Cool September nights, meanwhile, stimulate cells at the base of each leaf stem, or petiole, to dry out. Just inside these cells a layer of tough, corky cells develops, stopping the flow of water into the leaf and stopping the export of carbohydrates and metabolic waste back to the tree.

With the flow of water staunched, the production of chlorophyll stops. Chlorophyll, the green pigment in leaves, is volatile. Sunlight destroys it. A constant supply of water up through the trunk and into each leaf is required for the tree to continue manufacturing chlorophyll. As the flow of water into each leaf is cut off, the leaves become less and less green. Thanks for the good article. I live in Virginia about 60 miles west of Richmond.

There are several varieties of maple here. On my farm for example, we have red maples, sugar maples, and amur maples among others. Thank you for all this great information about photosynthesis and the stages of foliage.

This info will be incorporated my drawings. I think my maple tree leaves turned a different color last year than the leaves are this year. What causes that? I live in Little Rock, AR. Our Japanese Maple turned an amazing red and stayed red for several weeks. Then almost overnight turned loose of her leaves. However, in our neighborhood there are several similar maples that are still very full of vibrant red leaves.

What triggers a tree to let loose of its leaves? Do I need to get my soil tested, fertilize or is this just the natural turn of events in the life of my maple? By Lisa Ballard September 24, Twitter Facebook Mail Print.

Smart nature straight to your inbox every week Sign up for the newsletter. Brown leaf color comes from tannins, waste products that are left after the other colors fade.

The most vibrant fall foliage occurs if three things happen weather-wise: The end of the summer is dry. Autumn days are sunny.

Or it might increase leaf temperature, helping to protect from the cold. Some people have observed that trees tend to turn redder when an autumn is particularly bright and cold.

In , William Hoch, now at Montana State University, Bozeman, suggested that the pigment acts as a protective sunscreen, helping to keep leaves on the trees for longer so that more nutrients can be harvested from them. Photosynthesis becomes more difficult as chlorophyll is broken down, and leaves become more susceptible to damage from the Sun. Damaged leaves will fall more quickly, and rid the tree of a nutrient supply. Hoch did a study in which he made mutant trees that couldn't produce anthocyanins.

These dropped their leaves while they were still green when exposed to the high-stress environment of bright light and cold temperatures.

The mutant trees were much less efficient at storing up nitrogen for the winter. Habinck's study of natural sweetgum and red maple trees in a nature preserve in Charlotte supports this notion. Trees in the upland areas, where soils don't have much nitrogen, had much redder leaves than the trees in the flood-plain environment.

So it will turn red to stop its leaves dropping prematurely. Habinck's supervisor, Martha Eppes, now wants to look at satellite data to see whether there is a wider correlation between tree colour and soil type over large areas. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar.