Significance

The productivity of staple crops is a key factor shaping the affordability of food and the amount of land and other resources used in agriculture. We synthesize evidence on how the weather faced by these crops has changed and how these changes have affected productivity. Most cropping regions have experienced both rapid warming and atmospheric drying, with significant negative global yield impacts for three of the five crops. Models can largely reproduce these changes and impacts with two important exceptions—they overstate warming and drying in North America and understate drying in most other temperate regions. These insights can help to guide adaptation efforts and model improvements.

Abstract

Efforts to anticipate and adapt to future climate can benefit from historical experiences. We examine agroclimatic conditions over the past 50 y for five major crops around the world. Most regions experienced rapid warming relative to interannual variability, with 45% of summer and 32% of winter crop area warming by more than two SD (σ). Vapor pressure deficit (VPD), a key driver of plant water stress, also increased in most temperate regions but not in the tropics. Precipitation trends, while important in some locations, were generally below 1σ. Historical climate model simulations show that observed changes in crops’ climate would have been well predicted by models run with historical forcings, with two main surprises: i) models substantially overestimate the amount of warming and drying experienced by summer crops in North America, and ii) models underestimate the increase in VPD in most temperate cropping regions. Linking agroclimatic data to crop productivity, we estimate that climate trends have caused current global yields of wheat, maize, and barley to be 10, 4, and 13% lower than they would have otherwise been. These losses likely exceeded the benefits of CO2 increases over the same period, whereas CO2 benefits likely exceeded climate-related losses for soybean and rice. Aggregate global yield losses are very similar to what models would have predicted, with the two biases above largely offsetting each other. Climate model biases in reproducing VPD trends may partially explain the ineffectiveness of some adaptations predicted by modeling studies, such as farmer shifts to longer maturing varieties.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22446624

Have you ever had an especially rewarding, adventurous, dangerous, or really stupid experience of harvesting/foraging fruit?

I tend to live a sheltered life, so I don't have anything too exciting to share. I've harvested bananas with a hornets' nest on the underside of a leaf multiple times, but nothing unusual ever happened. I've gone wading through the swamp looking for aguaje, but the anacondas had already been hunted to extinction in that area. I've stood under a fruiting durian tree without a helmet, but it seems that durians don't just fall from the sky when I'm hungry.

Does anyone have an exciting or uplifting story to share?

WASHINGTON COURT HOUSE, Ohio (AP) — Stubborn drought in Ohio and the shifting weather patterns influenced by climate change appear to be affecting North America’s largest native fruit: the pawpaw.

Avocado-sized with a taste sometimes described as a cross between a mango and banana, the pawpaw is beloved by many but rarely seen in grocery stores in the U.S. due to its short shelf life. The fruit grows in various places in the eastern half of North America, from Ontario to Florida. But in parts of Ohio, which hosts an annual festival dedicated to the fruit, and Kentucky, some growers this year are reporting earlier-than-normal harvests and bitter-tasting fruit, a possible effect of the extreme weather from the spring freezes to drought that has hit the region.

Take Valerie Libbey’s orchard in Washington Court House, about an hour’s drive from Columbus. Libbey grows 100 pawpaw trees and said she was surprised to see the fruit dropping from trees in the first week of August instead of mid-September.

“I had walked into the orchard to do my regular irrigation and the smell of the fruit just hit me,” said Libbey, who added that this year’s harvest period was much shorter than in previous years and the fruits themselves were smaller and more bitter.

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No longer breaking news, but it will probably be just as relevant in the years to come.

Crop insurance is a lifeline for farmers. But research shows it's not ready for climate change.

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Invidious

• Monoculture palm oil production has come at the cost of rainforest habitat, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia.
• Researchers are conducting experimental trials in Malaysian Borneo to see if native trees can be planted in oil palm plantations without significantly reducing palm oil yields.
• While still in the initial stages, the experiment is so far showing there are no detrimental effects to oil palm growth.
• In fact, interplanting with native forest trees may benefit oil palm, with the researchers finding oil palm trees had more leaf growth in agroforestry plots than in monoculture ones.

Well... it's a start.

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Just a few years ago, the Sahel region at the northern edge of Senegal was a "barren wasteland" where nothing had grown for 40 years. But the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and local villagers teamed up to regreen the area, bringing back agriculture, improving the economy of the people who live there, and preventing the climate migration that desertification ultimately leads to.

In a recently published study, researchers offer a new tool to compare how different crops affect the environment in different regions.

Named PLANTdex, the tool assesses the environmental impact of a crop by considering five key indicators — greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater biodiversity loss, marine biodiversity loss, land biodiversity loss, and water resource depletion — study co-author Mark Jwaideh, nature data and risk analytics lead at the University of Oxford, told Mongabay by email.

For each crop, PLANTdex combines these five indicators into one score at a high resolution of 9 by 9 kilometers (5.6 by 5.6 miles).

“This granularity enables the identification of specific regions where crop production is more or less environmentally impactful, facilitating targeted interventions and policy decisions,” Jwaideh said. “This approach enables stakeholders to pinpoint environmental hotspots to make informed decisions on crop commodity sourcing or where better management is required.”

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• research cited

Hey kids, I had an idea again. So I performed this highly scientific study.

Introduction

U know wound adhesive spray? It's basically super glue you spray on wounds to close them and prevent germs and dirt from entering.

Theory

If we share 50% of our DNA with bananas, then I have a 50/50 chance that it can also work on plants.

To verify this highly scientific theory, I made a small experiment.

Steps to reproduce

Step 1: Choose a victim.

I chose this poor motherfucker.

Step 2: Surgery

Grab the most disgusting and dullest knife you can find, and cut a dent in it.

Step 3: Spray adhesive on the cut

(I accidentally made a carnivorous plant? Cool!)

Step 4: Wait a day

If we just would have left it as it, it would be absolutely dead by now in the summers heat.
But it isn't, surprise!

Learning

That stuff closes wounds on plants very good. I see no necrosis, despite probably hitting the vegetable artery. It's like nothing ever happened.

As a professional idiot I approve that method and will from now on use it when I'm accidentally beheading one of my beloved greens again.

Thanks for listening to my TED talk, see ya at my nobel prize award

Know the climate requirements of your fruits! Know the impact of future climate change on your region! The trees that you plant today will need to endure the climate conditions decades from now.

Abstract

Climate change is an emerging threat to global food and nutritional security. The tropical fruits such as mango, bananas, passionfruit, custard apples, and papaya are highly sensitive to weather changes especially; changes of monsoon onset and elevated temperature are influencing crop growth and production. There is a need for more specific studies concerning individual crops and regional variations. Long-term effects and interactions of weather parameters and increased concentration of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, with phenological stages of the plant, pests, and diseases remain understudied, while adaptation strategies require further exploration for comprehensive understanding and effective mitigation. Few researchers have addressed the issues on the effect of climate change on tropical fruits. This paper focuses on the impact of abiotic (temperature, rainfall, humidity, wind speed, evaporation, carbon dioxide concentration) and biotic (pest and pathogens dynamics) factors affecting the fruit crop ecosystem. These factors influence flowering, pollination, fruit set, fruit yield and quality. This review paper will help develop adaptive strategies, policy interventions and technological innovations aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of climate change on tropical fruit production and safeguarding global food and nutritional security.

Click "Download the selected file" to open the full text as PDF.

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archived (Wayback Machine)

• Towns across Côte d’Ivoire are facing shortages of staple foods like plantain and tomatoes, due to erratic weather.
• Prolonged drought and heavy rains have affected growers in towns like Soubré, who are struggling to maintain sufficient production to supply local markets.
• An expert says adapting to the new climate reality is key, and proposes training farmers in new agricultural techniques and improving natural resource management.

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• Climate change is colliding with land use practices, deforestation and biodiversity loss to drive a rapidly growing threat of crop pests.
• Future warming of 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels (likely by the 2040s or 2050s, according to current projections) could see substantial losses of staple crop yields for wheat (an estimated 46% loss), rice (19%) and maize (31%) due to pest infestations, according to a recent paper.
• Temperate regions are likely to see the greatest increases in crop pests as warming creates conditions for migrating subtropical species to establish themselves in previously unhabitable areas.
• The authors underline the need for more pest monitoring, diversification of farmland crops and biotechnological solutions to meet this growing threat.

Note that future warming is likely to be up to 50% greater than stated in this article.

archived (Wayback Machine):

• Mongabay article
• research cited

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/27601124

I have Ostrich fern on the front of my house that I have been waiting years to try. I keep missing the window when they are ready so I was overjoyed when I saw my fiddlehead popping up. I chopped 9, steamed with in a pan with a little butter for 5 minutes. I plated them with just a sprinkle of flaky salt and had them for lunch today.

They were great and tasted a little like asparagus but with a more savory, earthly flavor. They were amazing and totally worth the wait. I might check tomorrow to see if I can sustainability grab a few more to have them again.

10/10 would forage again.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21789538

Not necessarily your favourite fruit to eat, but what is/are your favourite fruit tree(s) to grow based on survival rate, fruit yield, ease of maintenance, ease of harvest, grass-killing prowess, and any other combination of factors? What is/are your least favourite? If you have photos or diagrams to illustrate your point, even better!

(If you provide your region and/or Köppen-Geiger or Trewartha climate zone, it will help others to know what to plant or what to avoid!)

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21694386

Conservation orchards, or living collections, for fruit trees serve as a means to preserve genetic diversity while making it available in case of emergencies to preempt threats associated with global changes. Unlike seed banks, these collections provide immediate access to the necessary materials (pollen and flowers) for crossbreeding in varietal improvement programmes, as well as for reforestation and the conservation of wild relatives in forests. These conservation orchards also serve as open-air laboratories to study the response of fruit trees to climate conditions and parasite attacks, as well as the evolutionary and ecological processes that give rise to biodiversity.

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• Farmers in a cacao-producing region of southwestern Côte d’Ivoire have seen their yields decline so much that they’re abandoning their plantations and considering switching to other crops.
• They say cacao, long a mainstay of the agricultural economy of this region and the country, is no longer profitable due to changing weather patterns and an increase in plant diseases like swollen shoot.
• An agronomist says the changing weather is partly due to deforestation caused by the expansion of cacao production in recent decades, and recommends agroforestry and reforestation as a remedy.

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Farming has always been at the mercy of the weather, but recent years have seen unprecedented swings in temperature, rainfall, and storms. Droughts dry up fields, floods wash away seeds, and heatwaves scorch crops. These shifts don’t just threaten harvests—they destabilize farm incomes. Solar energy offers a much-needed anchor. By capturing sunlight, a constant even when the weather is wild, farmers can generate reliable electricity regardless of the season. This newfound consistency helps them weather financial storms even when nature is unpredictable.

Recognizing the benefits of clean energy, many governments now offer attractive incentives for solar adoption. These include grants, low-interest loans, and tax breaks designed to lower upfront costs. For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s REAP program covers up to 50% of solar installation costs. Such support makes the switch to solar not just appealing, but financially feasible for small and large farms alike. It’s a win-win: farmers get affordable energy, and communities enjoy cleaner air.

Jason Baldes drove down a dusty, sagebrush highway earlier this month, pulling 11 young buffalo in a trailer up from Colorado to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. His blue truck has painted on the side a drawing of buffalo and a calf. As the executive director of the Wind River Buffalo Initiative and Eastern Shoshone tribal member, he’s helped grow the number of buffalo on the reservation for the last decade. The latest count: the Northern Arapaho tribe have 97 and the Eastern Shoshone have 118.

“Tribes have an important role in restoring buffalo for food sovereignty, culture and nutrition, but also for overall bison recovery,” he said.

The Eastern Shoshone this month voted to classify buffalo as wildlife instead of livestock as a way to treat them more like elk or deer rather than like cattle. Because the two tribes share the same land base, the Northern Arapaho are expected to vote on the distinction as well. The vote indicates a growing interest to both restore buffalo on the landscape and challenge the relationship between animal and product.

• Cocoa production in Côte d’Ivoire began in the 1950s in forests bordering Ghana, and progressively shifted west as trees were removed and soil exhausted. Côte d’Ivoire lost 217,866 hectares of protected forest from 2001 to 2014 to monocultures of it.
• Now, the region where cocoa can be grown is shrinking due to climate and rainfall patterns: agroforestry is the sole way ensure that it can continue as the mainstay crop of the economies of Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, so it’s time to ‘go big’ on implementing it widely.
• Agroforestry cools the microclimates on farms and increases climate resiliency and biodiversity, but is a complex, time consuming technique that varies by region.
• Careful selection of tree species and spacing are critical to maximize yields, which is a key problem to solve toward wider adoption of agroforestry-grown chocolate.

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Global food systems are responsible for around one third of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Producing less meat, using less synthetic fertiliser, stopping food waste and integrating nature into farms are among the ways that scientists say can reduce environmental harms from producing food. However, some critics of these approaches note the possible trade-offs, such as lower yields compared to “conventional” forms of intensive farming.

Various terms are used to describe these more “climate-friendly” ways of farming. Some of these practices have set definitions and are evidence-based, while others are buzzwords whose meanings vary depending on the source. Many share similar approaches.

To break through the jargon, Carbon Brief has identified 25 commonly discussed climate-relevant farming methods and key terms.

Agroforestry is recognized as a way to boost local biodiversity, improve soils and diversify farming incomes. New research suggests it may also benefit nearby forests by reducing pressure to clear them.

The study found agroforestry has helped reduce deforestation across Southeast Asia by an estimated 250,319 hectares (618,552 acres) per year between 2015 and 2023, lowering emissions and underscoring its potential as a natural climate solution.

However, the findings also indicate agroforestry worsened deforestation in many parts of the region, highlighting a nuanced bigger picture that experts say must be heeded.

Local social, economic and ecological factors are pivotal in determining whether agroforestry’s impacts on nearby forests will be positive or negative, the authors say, and will depend on the prevalence of supportive policies.

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