In the past, “the montanera” was observed in mid-August, that is, to see how full the holm oaks were of acorns in order to organise the breeding and fattening of the livestock.
At Semillistas, we do the same thing to find out if we will have a sufficient harvest for reforestation. We have had two years in which there were no well-formed acorns at all, they were ridiculously small, and we had to go far away to look for them.
Last year we had a good harvest, because although it was one of the years with the least rainfall in the Alpujarra, it happened to rain at the beginning of June, which saved a lot of crops.
This year we had almost 600 litres of rainfall, and it was concentrated between January and March. In the spring there was hardly any rain, but there was plenty of water, and it is showing in the signs of the montanera: The acorns are thriving in spite of everything!
However, in rockier parts of the mountains, the water stress is visible (second photo), where we can see that the acorn has not come out of its dome. It would only be saved if there was a good start to autumn, fingers crossed.
