Georgia Citrus May Replace Peaches As Warming Moves North, Chilling Days Disappear

[hatrack]

Farmers have always dealt with the whims of Mother Nature. But now climate change is changing what they can grow and where they can grow it.  The most unusual thing about Joe Franklin's 78-acre citrus farm is that it really shouldn't be where it is. "When I first started with it, people couldn't believe me when I told 'em it was grown right here in Georgia," they said. "They didn't believe me; 'Oh, no, you can't grow that here!'" But Franklin now has 12,000 trees, growing fruit in the middle of Georgia you'd normally expect to find hundreds of miles south in Florida: Grapefruit, Meyer lemons, mandarins, mangoes.

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"A lot of crops – not just in the U.S. but also in Africa, India – are already seeing the impacts of climate change," said Himanshu Gupta, CEO of San Francisco-based startup Climate Ai. The stakes are high: as the planet warms and climate change fuels more severe drought and flooding, it's estimated worldwide crop yields could decline up to 30% by the year 2050 (according to a report by the Global Center on Adaptation).

Gupta showed Tracy how the cranberries on our Thanksgiving tables will likely have to be grown significantly further north in the coming decades. Climate Ai's platform uses machine learning to identify climate risks for agricultural producers. "Using that, you can tailor your recommendations for the food companies or seed companies or for farmers," Gupta said.

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But while warmer temperatures may benefit some crops, they can devastate others. In Georgia, the state's famed peach trees require significant winter chill in order to bloom come spring. Pam Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia, said winters in the state have warmed on average more than three-and-a-half degrees since the 1800s, enough to put many varieties of peaches at risk.

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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/with-climate-change-crops-migrate-north/

[Pete Ross Junior]

1. New Jersey peaches anyone?

[NickB79]

2. And I'm growing second-generation peaches in Minnesota

Two friends both had bumper crops on their Minnesota-planted Contender peach trees. One in the Twin Cities, the other in St. Cloud, which is 100 miles north of the Twin Cities.

I'm now growing seedlings from their peach pits, just south of the Twin Cities. And I've even found a wild peach sapling growing at the edge of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival parking lot, likely grown from someone's discarded snack years ago. I'm going to start growing and giving away every pit I can get from my friends from now on.

[hatrack]

3. Somehow "Johnny Peachpit" doesn't have quite the same ring . .