In a Race Against the Sun, Growers Try to Outsmart Climate Change
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/21/climate/agriculture-climate-change.html
Source: By Marla Cone, The New York Times.
Excerpt: ...With their deep roots and tough, gnarly branches, pistachio trees are hardy, tolerant of salty soils and brutal heat waves. Some can live for centuries. But while sweltering summers are the norm in this part of central California, there’s a new, existential threat to these trees, one that scientists warn could spell the end of the pistachio harvest: warmer winters. Many crops are facing similar threats as agricultural regions across the world experience previously unseen extremes in heat, rain and drought. Chilly winters are critical to nut and fruit trees, particularly pistachios. To break their slumber and spread their pollen, pistachios need to spend about 850 hours, or five weeks, at temperatures below 45 degrees. ...So as the San Joaquin Valley warms and its cooling fogs retreat, growers have found their orchards out of sync: Many male trees are no longer producing pollen when the females need it. ...After growing coffee for generations, farmers in parts of Costa Rica are switching to oranges. Kenyan herders, facing intense droughts, are raising camels instead of cattle. Farmers in the Midwestern United States are planting corn several weeks early so their crops can pollinate before the hotter summers. In China’s drought-prone Fujian province, farmers who grew wheat and corn have switched to apples. In India, some farmers have replaced rice with millet, an ancient grain that thrives in parched, infertile soils. And as seawater swamps Bangladesh, some rice fields have been transformed into shrimp farms. Yet adaptation is a gradual, decades-long process....
Source: By Marla Cone, The New York Times.
Excerpt: ...With their deep roots and tough, gnarly branches, pistachio trees are hardy, tolerant of salty soils and brutal heat waves. Some can live for centuries. But while sweltering summers are the norm in this part of central California, there’s a new, existential threat to these trees, one that scientists warn could spell the end of the pistachio harvest: warmer winters. Many crops are facing similar threats as agricultural regions across the world experience previously unseen extremes in heat, rain and drought. Chilly winters are critical to nut and fruit trees, particularly pistachios. To break their slumber and spread their pollen, pistachios need to spend about 850 hours, or five weeks, at temperatures below 45 degrees. ...So as the San Joaquin Valley warms and its cooling fogs retreat, growers have found their orchards out of sync: Many male trees are no longer producing pollen when the females need it. ...After growing coffee for generations, farmers in parts of Costa Rica are switching to oranges. Kenyan herders, facing intense droughts, are raising camels instead of cattle. Farmers in the Midwestern United States are planting corn several weeks early so their crops can pollinate before the hotter summers. In China’s drought-prone Fujian province, farmers who grew wheat and corn have switched to apples. In India, some farmers have replaced rice with millet, an ancient grain that thrives in parched, infertile soils. And as seawater swamps Bangladesh, some rice fields have been transformed into shrimp farms. Yet adaptation is a gradual, decades-long process....