Climate Change Poses Threat to UK Orchards?

Discussion in 'Plants: In the News' started by Daniel Mosquin, Aug 22, 2006.

  1. Daniel Mosquin

    Daniel Mosquin Paragon of Plants UBC Botanical Garden Forums Administrator Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Dr. Simon Thornton-Wood, head of science at the RHS, predicts that apples and other fruit requiring winter chill may soon not thrive in the UK.

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  2. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    There's a lot to be worried about with global warming, but I don't think this is one of them - most of Britain is actually too cool for successful fruit growing (far more apples etc are grown in warmer areas like France and Spain). I'd say global warming would extend the possibilities for fruit cultivation here.
     
  3. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    But the premise that Global Warming will effect what grows where is a valid one. Droughts/warmer temperatures in areas that are typically used as breadbaskets for a larger population will cause great social impact if Global Warming is not addressed in a meaningful way. I presume that France is getting warmer. What if it's orchards are effected by Global Warming? Is Britain prepared to take up some or all of the slack? And if you follow that argument down the line, will all crops be raised farther and farther north as Global Warming worsens?

    I don't have the education to know how bad Global Warming will become in the future, but I do think that some of the possible futures that could come about as a result have not been even remotely addressed.

    And as an aside, I have always thought that Bush didn't put his fears in the right place. Instead of being afraid of a might-be terrorist, he should have been shaking in his boots at the prospects that Global Warming might bring. Harry
     
  4. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Hi Harry,

    Yes, you're quite right - what it means is that as French apple orchards die off through heat and drought, more orchard planting will (or at least should be!) done in Britain.

    For another recent example, the exceptionally hot 2003 summer caused massive cereal crop failure in southern Europe, but a record-breaking bumper harvest in Britain (which is, let's face it, too cool and wet for good cereal growth in most summers). Just for once, our arable farmers were really happy.

    2006 has been as good for those who got their crops in before the wet weather began in August; for those who didn't, it's been another expensive session with the grain dryers to produce poor quality sprouted-in-the-ear stuff.
     
  5. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    Hi Michael,

    Following the orchard example out one more step, you have to take into consideration the time lag, from planting to fruit. If the most dire predictions come about (I hope that's not the case), then the farther north you move, there might not be time to plant a tree and get fruit from it before the area it is in will also be affected. This doesn't speak to any of the other things it takes to grow a tree (water, space, soil, nutrients, orchardists). What seems to me is that everyone thinks there is time. But I don't think that is a given. What is done today is what is going to give people time in the future.

    Everyone should be thinking green, now. :)

    Harry



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  6. Michael F

    Michael F Paragon of Plants Forums Moderator 10 Years

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    Good points!
     
  7. chuckrkc

    chuckrkc Active Member

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    I would suspect if French orchards perish, there will be more Chinese, American and Australian apples in Europe.
     
  8. wrygrass2

    wrygrass2 Active Member 10 Years

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    Chuckrkc wrote:

    I hope that prediction holds true, but that again presumes that the areas where fruit is grown in those countries is not also affected by Global Warming. I think you are overlooking the Global in Global warming. I cannot speak to Australia and China, but the weather in this state (WA) appears to warming, a state known for its production of apples. Even if those countries are able to increase production to take up the slack it still takes time to do so. In any case, my only thought was that the time lag to pick up production might be problematic in the future.

    How far in the future I think depends upon how effective the world population is at changing the climatic trends. I think most scientists today accept that the world's climate is warming. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much political will to do those things necessary to reverse this. At least this seems the case in those countries most contributing to the Greenhouse Gas load in the atmosphere (US, China, ...).

    In fact if the predictions for the future are as far off the mark as they were in the 70's and 80's then catastophic warming might be coming much more quickly than is presently believed. The biggest thing to remember about the original theory is that the warmer it gets, the warmer it gets. Anybody that is saying that there might be something mitigating that fact I think is probably grasping at straws. I hope I'm wrong there, but the information that comes out every day as to the weather in the far flung corners of the world seem to support Global Warming is here and getting worse. How bad it will get will depend much on how, how soon, and what the world's population does to combat it.

    This is really depressing to my notion, so this will be my last reply on this subject but will continue to see what others think here. Harry
     
    Last edited: Aug 31, 2006
  9. chuckrkc

    chuckrkc Active Member

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  10. Gordo

    Gordo Active Member 10 Years

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    Perhaps the best news on the global warming front is that people finally seem to have become more fully aware of the situation and the dire implications for the future. We are hearing less of the arguement that this is fundamentally a natural phenomena as more scientific data becomes available to dispute this. I recently read or heard that we currently have more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any other time in the last 20 million years. The data on glacial melting throughout the world is similarly alarming. As was mentioned, the snowball effect (perhaps a poor choice of words) of GW is perhaps the scariest aspect of all, as warming begets more warming.
    http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0829-02.htm
     
  11. chuckrkc

    chuckrkc Active Member

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    One effect of global warming I found while reading an article on organic Washington apples for the newspaper for the fresh produce industry that I work on:

    "The dry conditions in the state — which minimize fungus and disease pressure — make it more suited than perhaps any other U.S. apple region to respond to growing consumer interest in organics, shippers say."

    This is not to say global warming is not a concern. I buy into that. However, it is interesting to think of global warming contributing to organic apple production.
     
  12. Ron B

    Ron B Paragon of Plants 10 Years

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    If it were simply a matter of warming being the only occurrence that would be one thing. This is not typical of natural phenomona and their complex interconnectedness. Locally we have already been told the mountain snowpack that supplies nearly all of our water will be severely diminished by 2040. And they're not talking about it suddenly falling off at that time, either, there will be years of it drying up leading to that point.

    Meanwhile, darker springs are predicted in conjunction with the obvious hotter summers. So conditions for farming and gardening (as well as simply living) may soon become markedly less favorable on those two counts (loss of irrigation water and reduced illumination in spring) right off.
     

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