Tree Dropping Seeds

Question

My live oak is dropping millions of seeds and it never did this before. My son is a hunter and he says it’s happening in the woods also, WHY?

Answer 1

It has been a stressful few years for trees due to the odd weather we have been having. Many trees, live oaks among them, will get a stress reaction where they will over produce seeds the year after a stressful year.

It is done as a precaution on the tree's part. It feels threatened and feels that it must try to reproduce to replace itself should it die, so it dramatically increases the number of seeds it produces to increase the chances of successful offspring.