Autumn leaves in Tennessee will be colorful the week of the Tennessee-Alabama football game but even more spectacular the following week, a University of Tennessee forester said Friday.
Some trees are more stressed than others and are already dropping their leaves.
But, if you look out over the countryside, most trees are still green. If September has many bright, sunny days and cool nights, color intensifies.'' Bright sunshine encourages leaves to manufacture sugar, and cool weather traps the sugar in the leaf instead of allowing it to move to the tree's roots, Hopper said. The trapped sugar intensifies the color of the leaf when the shorter days cause the chlorophyll, the green pigment in leaves, to disappear.