Many US fruit growers are watching climate change shift the seasonal patterns they've counted on for years to produce fruit. As the atmosphere warms and weather becomes more unpredictable, some farmers are considering big changes, like planting different crops or finding new ways to protect trees from the elements.
In New Hampshire, farms at higher elevations fared better than lower elevation farms like the Southers. The director of the state's Farm Services Agency, Jeffery Holmes, said this year was unprecedented. Hundreds of acres of crops froze during two big cold snaps: first peaches in February, then apples in May.
Jason Londo, a professor of horticulture at Cornell University, studies how fruit crops are adapting to human-driven climate change. He said not every damaging event – like that May freeze – indicates a changing climate. The temperatures apple trees have adapted to over thousands of years are shifting as people continue to burn fossil fuels which cause global warming.
"Climate change is impacting how our fruit crops perceive the safest time to wake up in the spring," Londo said. "As they wake up earlier and earlier, but the threat of an acute cold event doesn't decrease, they become more and more exposed to these sorts of events."
Farmers across the country are dealing with these changes. This year in Georgia, January and February were extremely warm. Peaches bloomed early. Then in March, two frosts killed almost all of the commercial peaches in the state. In Virginia, freezing days in March and April hurt apples that bloomed early, too.
Source: npr.org
