Berkeley Lab study finds warmer California temperatures by mid-century will be too hot for some crops, just right for others
Record drought and heat have some farmers worried about where and when crops can be grown in the future, even in California where unprecedented microclimate diversity creates ideal growing conditions for many of the most popular items in America’s grocery stores. A third of the vegetables and two-thirds of fruits and nuts consumed by Americans are now grown on more than 76,000 farms across the state, yet 20 years from now certain California regions may simply become too hot and dry for continued production.
New research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) shows that by the years 2045-2049 future temperatures will have more of an effect on when cool-season crops, such as broccoli and lettuce, can be grown than on where, while for warm-season crops (cantaloupe, tomatoes, carrots) the impact will be greater for where they can be grown versus when. The scientists describe pairing computer modeling with information about historic and ideal growing temperatures for five important California crops in their paper, “Projected temperature increases may require shifts in the growing season of cool-season crops and the growing locations of warm-season crops,” which appeared in the journal Science of the Total Environment earlier this month.
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