Outdoor Elements
Pine Cone Forecaster
Clip | 4m 43sVideo has Closed Captions
Forget weather apps, watch pine cones! Nature's secret forecasters open wide in sunshine,
Forget weather apps, watch pine cones! Nature's secret forecasters open wide in sunshine, releasing seeds on air currents, but batten down the hatches when rain looms. Discover how these spiky wonders dance with the weather!
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
Pine Cone Forecaster
Clip | 4m 43sVideo has Closed Captions
Forget weather apps, watch pine cones! Nature's secret forecasters open wide in sunshine, releasing seeds on air currents, but batten down the hatches when rain looms. Discover how these spiky wonders dance with the weather!
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
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Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipCan you forecast the weather using a pine cone?
Well, sort of.
This is a pine cone that I've had on my deck, actually for a couple of years.
And I've shot video of it on sunny dry days and on damp, cloudy days like today when it's damp and cloudy.
It is closed up.
The moisture makes it close up.
And I'll tell you why in a minute.
But in dry conditions.
Pine cones, all their scales are wide open, closed in damp, humid weather.
Wide open in dry weather.
This one I've had inside for several years.
It's a western species not found in the Great Lakes.
That's why it's so gigantic.
And how does this work?
Well, I did a little research, and here's what I found out.
There are no living cells in a pine cone, but each of the scales has layers of cells no longer living, but they are still functioning.
That top layer on the inside of each of these scales has cells that are really stiff and really rigid.
They don't flex much and they don't change with moisture.
But on the underside of each of these scales, the cells are stretchy and they absorb moisture.
So on a humid day like today, humid air gathers around the pine cone.
Moisture is kind of funneled towards the center of the cone or the core of the cone or if it's raining, definitely the rain kind of gets into the scales here and eventually the moisture gets absorbed by these cells on the underside of each of those scales and those stretchy cells as they lengthen kind of curl because all those cells in a line kind of expand and they curl, creating the cause or creating the effect that the cone closes up because all those scales are kind of stretching upward in this case and closing up.
So in humid weather, the cone looks like this.
In dry weather, the cone opens up based on those cell layers.
So why is that important to a cone?
Well, in humid weather, if the cone was open, the seeds that are located in between all of these scales would probably just drop down right to the ground under the pine tree.
And very few of them would be able to grow.
But on dry days, the seeds which have little wings, they can disperse on the breeze, they can get spread out into a larger area, increasing the success rate of germination.
So damp days the cone closes so as not to release seeds.
On dry days, The cone opens so that the seeds can disperse easily.
It's just interesting that even when the seeds are all gone, the cone continues to do this open and closed based on the humidity.
Both of these cones I have had for years and these continue to open and close depending on the moisture in the air.
You can try this at home and kind of speed it up.
If you find a cone from a pine tree, you can dip it in a bucket of water and eventually you'll see the cone closed.
Or you can take a closed cone and put it near a fan or a heater.
And in a few hours you'll see that it starts to open.
Scientists are doing all kinds of really cool experiments with this cell variable cell strategy to see if maybe there could be fabrics that could change with moisture or even building materials.
How about that?
Don't forget, we have new webisodes that appear every week on social media and also our Outdoor Elements website.
And remember, you can find your own outdoor elements when you visit area parks and natural areas.
We'll see you soon.
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