What is the relationship between mistletoe and hickory nut yield?

Question

OK, there's this hickory nut tree that I went to the fall before last, and I collected a bunch of nuts. Then, this year, it was smothered in mistletoe (way more than the year before) and there weren't any nuts.

Do hickory trees have nuts every year? Does the excess mistletoe sap the tree's strength, or is it just a sign that the tree is weak in general? Or does the mistletoe have nothing to do with the nut yield? (Other hickory nut trees had nuts last year, about as many as the year before.)

Answer 1

mistletoe steal nutrients from the hickory trees. The hickories pobably abort the developing nuts because there's not enough enough to allow them to grow to maturity