A correspondent in Mississippi reports in with respect to her blueberry crop:
Low of 23F this morning broke record by SIX DEGREES F. Even covered with agribon-50 which gives 6F protection…still froze the (already set!) berries.
Same varieties my grandmother grew in the 70’s and 80’s…never lost a crop to freezes either…
It’s an every year thing now…we’re discussing whether to just pull them up and do something else, or go ninja with freeze protection (agribon50 + agribon 30 + tarps) which will involve even more severe pruning of the plants…they were 8ft tall. By the way, read tweet this morning that no blueberries north of I10 made it…up to I 40)…unless covered more than we did.
There is not much of the United States that is south of the I10 left to grow blueberries in. The red line in the following map is the I10:
We seem to be living in at least three parallel universes. In the first one a priestly class of climate scientists is predicting fire and brimstone unless we mend our evil ways:
The good news is that if we heed their final warning and do exactly as we are told than the warming might be limited to 1.5°C.
The second parallel universe is the temperature record which has been absolutely flat:
A great torrent of carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere over the last 44 years since the start of that graph but as it shows the temperature has been absolutely flat. I don’t know what the margin of error is in the UAH temperature record, and I don’t want to impune the work of Dr Roy Spencer in putting this record together by suggesting there is a margin for error, however the last result may be within the margin for error and in effect we have had no change in temperature for decades.
The third parallel universe is the ground truth of the sort experienced by our correspondent in Mississippi. She can’t grow things that she used to grow because of record low temperatures. According to the maps, plant hardiness zones having been moving poleward:
The maps above are based on the average annual minimum temperature of any given spot — a metric that plays a big part in determining if perennial crops like orange trees will make it through the coldest months. Each zone marks out a 10 degrees F band, from -60 to -50 degrees F in zone 1 to 60 to 70 degrees F in zone 13. According to the article those maps came from, plant hardiness zones are moving north in the U.S. at 13 miles per decade. Thay may be over now.
Perhaps we can get some guidance from the heavens, specifically the Oulu Neutron Monitor. This is based on an anonymous comment on a post on WUWT some fifteen years ago in which the commenter effectively said “You idiots, climate is controlled by the magnetic flux from the Sun.” The way the comment was structured suggested the author was one of the priestly class of climate scientists who was likely well paid, intelligent and bored. Out of idle curiosity he determined the major control on climate. This is what that looks like since records have begun:
There was a step down in solar magnetic activity in 2005. With the lags in the climate system, temperature peaked in 2016. The plant hardiness zones will retreat south and blueberries will be a fond memory.
David Archibald is the author of American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare
I live in Washington State that is approaching 100 million pounds of blueberries – WA is #1. Michigan is #3 at over 90 million pounds. Mississippi is a distant ninth with 8.8 million pounds.
To evaluate this person’s failure, more information (context) is necessary.
Yes, Blueberries grow all throughout North America, with Canada and New England being big producers. Is this a southern variety that is adapted to a warmer climate?
My family used to pick wild blueberries growing on Canadian shield rock in northern Ontario. The plants loved the soil that built up in the cracks in the rock. Our biggest complaint was that lazy doofuses from Toronto would drive up and pull entire plants up because they were too stupid and lazy to pick individual berries, and to realise the inevitable consequence
Looking at a farm in southern Michigan, their U-Pick season is mid-July to mid-August. So good question about whether there is a southern variety…or their growing season starts earlier? A winter crop? The crops in the north hardly seem to be in danger if they come in July.
Edit: Seems to be more an issue of a freeze coming after the blooms. This could happen anywhere–it just tends to happen earlier in more southern climes. Blooms start when the weather gets warm enough, then a late freeze can be disastrous.
I love haskap berries. Plants are out of Siberia & northern Japan originally and can survive -35 C over winter plus the blossoms are tough and will survive to -7 C if you get a late frost.
I pick my haskaps in June, raspberries & Saskatoons in August and goji in September. Strawberries have shallow roots (6″-12″) that die if frozen so not a good crop for my area where the ground freezes 3-5 feet. Containers in the greenhouse so they can be moved indoors for winter.
I’ve tried blueberries but they are finicky about soil alkalinity (they like it a bit “acidic”).
Yes!
The problem we have had in the southeast for the last 5 years is that we have a very warm February that brings out all the fruit blossoms. (I have plums, pears and peaches and have eaten very few lately.) Then along about the second week of March, we get a deep freeze of mid 20s for a couple of mornings with mid to upper 30 highs. Blueberries will still make if the fruit is set and the temp gets down to 28 or 29, but 24 or 25 and they brown right off. Plums are a degree or two higher, pears are hardier if fruit is set, but flowers get destroyed at those temps. Peaches are a basket case if it gets below 32 once flowers are out.
Owen thanks for the specific info. I raely see that kind or knowledge but it makes sense based on my experience. I live in North Florida. I have truly enjoyed the slightly warmer early-mid winters. These past few years I have been able to grow the best Bird of Paradise blooms, quite a treat up here. I’ve also noticed they are growing some varieties of oranges, which is far north of the normal central Florida lines. So sorry about the blueberries, maybe push the envelope, adapt, and try oranges, grapefruits and Bird of Paradise. I’m guessing these temperatures will evole but if they dont…thank you for warmer weather.
There were efforts in the past to grow oranges in Georgia and even South Carolina. One cold year destroyed many hopes. The same thing happened with coffee in Brazil, when they tried to grow it a little too close to Antarctica. People always push the envelope. What is interesting is that the Puritans got away with planting sugar maples south of their “natural range” because the Medieval Warm Period was over and the Little Ice Age was on-going, but now the maples to the south are dying due to winter thaws, but people blame Global Warming rather than the fact they were planted too far south.
I live in Virginia and I can certainly commiserate.
We just had a few nights with temperatures in the low twenties, 20°F one night.
Peaches are in flower, plums are past flowering, no peaches or plums this year.
The pear is just now coming into flower is a Kieffer bastard pear of uncertain parentage, but has proven remarkably hardy providing us at least some fruits most years.
Also up are the cherries. Some of the neighbor’s cherries are beginning to flower. Mine usually follow in a week or two.
Last year we didn’t get any cherry fruits.
Now we’re in for a few warm days, some convective storms, maybe a tornado or two then a return to a chilly Spring.
We grow blueberries here in West Virginia, and I’ve picked them in Maine. I’m not too worried about global cooling (or warming) killing them off.
Can’t paste photo.. “Blueberries for Sal” book cover.
I remember that.
Can’t get fresh blueberries from Maine in March
“A great torrent of carbon dioxide has been released into the atmosphere over the last 44 years since the start of that graph but as it shows the temperature has been absolutely flat.”
ab·so·lute·ly /ˈabsəˌlo͞otlē,ˌabsəˈlo͞otlē/
adverb
flat /flat/
adjective
Eh?
However, the atmosphere will only hold what the oceans temperature will allow, and that is about an extra 2 ppm per year or 4.2 Gigatons.
Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs
Huge fields of blueberry plants in Maine. The company that grows them is key provider on the Wreaths Across America program and this now retired trucker has picked up wreaths from the warehouses where, during the season, blueberries are shipped from. The employees that make and ship the wreaths are the ones that work for the Company processing and packing blueberries during the season.
The wreaths I picked up were bound for two military cemeteries in S. Texas. One at San Antonio and one at New Braunfels.
Congratulations on your recent(?) retirement.
Thank you.
My first week. I had planned on retiring in October, but an illness in the family changed that. And so now I am working full time getting signed up for SS, Medicare, selecting a plan, rolling over a 401K into an IRA, and figuring out how to keep from getting raped by taxes on an inheritance coming to me through a trust that consists of various forms of revenue/property and arranging investments.
I guess those are all good problems, but to quite frank, I would rather be driving a truck today!.
I went to the SS office and figured I would just sign up there. Due to our Federal Government being a dysfunctional basket case since COVID, they could not sign me up. They do not have the workers to do it they say. So the options are:
Do it online or wait until May 5th for a telephone conference in which I would be signed up.
So today I signed up for SS and MC via on line and set up an appointment from a United Health Care rep for Monday to get my wife and I set up on the Medicare plan I have selected. She can go on the plan right away, I have to wait for my MC application to be processed and so will probably have to go on COBRA for a month before I get the Medicare coverage.
Of all the places this truck driver has gone since December, the SS office and the hospital are the ONLY places I have gone into in that time where masks are still required.
I Love my country but hate my government!
The real test…
Are you going to sell your truck, after getting it to work the way you like?
I drove a company truck so I just clean out that 2015 Cascadia Freightliner that I got into when it was new and I’m done. That happens today.
As for the 1991 Dodge Ram Pickup 2500 I just bought that has an 8 liter V10 engine? That truck stays with me and is such a cherry it should be the last truck I will ever need.
I foresee in my future a medium sized class A RV to take my wife across the country to see the things that she has not seen and spend time at places I have seen but would have liked to have spent more time there.
There’s something wrong, I must be too simple and practical. Domestic blueberries grow prolifically in the Fraser Valley of southwestern BC, at least 2000 km north of any area south of I-10, and in ever increasing numbers commensurate with a cultural change in the area due to immigration from parts of the world with much warmer climate. Wild blueberries grow at 2,000 meters elevation on mountain ridges here–and man are they tasty.
Instead of hand-wringing about blueberries freezing in Mississippi, or doing all this analytical detail of tiny variations in temperature anomaly, not even in temperature–why not just change varieties? Didn’t humans survive this far based on adaptability?
Besides, even with all the analysis in the article, aren’t the Mississippi blueberries indicating a temperature change seemingly not detectable by adjustometers?
I’m guessing the issue is that blueberries are setting very early in Mississippi compared to more northerly climes, so if there is a late frost, the damage is more severe. Blueberry bushes up north are still dormant at that time.
That is the issue. We get early set due to a false spring from mid January to late February, then second winter in early to mid March. We always have, but it used to be that second winter was right at the freezing point, not low to mid 20s. (At least that is Georgia’s experience of late.)
We here in mid TN had 2nd winter from 13th thru the 21st with lows below freezing. The 20th’s official low was 21° below average at a balmy 15F, just shy of the record of 14. CO2 has done its magic today though – it’s currently 75.
We are just now finishing up with the third dip of a triple dip La Nina. Just a few days ago, some suburbs of Philadelphia had spectacularly low temperatures (18 degrees F at Quakertown Municipal Airport, 22 degrees F at Wings Field) in the early AM of 3/20/2023. However, Center City Philadelphia got down to 14 degrees F on 3/29 and 4/1 1923, and 9 degrees F on 3/19/1876. PHL airport got down to 11 degrees F on 3/15/1993.
Maybe it’s time for some indulgence payments to the UN staff. Don’t forget to mention the benefits of blueberries of color.
They grow blueberries in Michigan and New Jersey. I guess that those farmers never got the message about I-10.
Headline: Untimely frosts are and have always been a risk for a host of crops, irrespective of climate zone. Late spring and early fall frosts and freezes happen, always have, always will.
I’m not so sure this is a good premise for an article.
They are north of I-40, so they don’t get the false spring to set them off early.
Blueberries were originally cultivated as a crop in South Jersey. And every year there are loads of them no matter how cold the winter. Not sure about this post.
With the best will in the world, that temperature record is not flat, is it.
It shows wild fluctuations with an underlying slow warming trend.
Flat it is not.
Wild fluctuations?! Viewed at a scale of 1/10th of the unit of measure of most thermometers maybe.
Convert their cynically scaled graphs into full degrees Celsius and marvel at the flatness.
Once the plants start to bloom the temperature must not fall below freezing, otherwise there’ll be no fruits. My mother usually drags me to picking blueberries once or twice every year. I am quite gratefull for forst in spring 😉
They’re all correct.
About deserts.
Deserts ‘may’ have high tempertaures but they have low energies
As we’re reading about the blueberries – deserts are cold places
Natural Variation didn’t do it.
‘somebody’ did it by destroying the soil and removing the water
Vaguely On Topic but an epic coincidence, I watched a utube presentation this afternoon, on the subject of autoimmune disorders – and the truly hideous mess that is Modern Medicine.
Just like climate science.
Seemingly the mother of a young girl, age about 2 at the time, took her daughter to the family doctor.
The child was obviously in great pain quite often and could hardly even crawl across the floor, such was the pain.
Doctor was very good and diagnosed Rheumatoid Arthritis.
(WTF you say, in a 2 year old)
No matter, kid was prescribed bucketfuls of very strong medicine, which sometimes helped, but needed ever greater doses and to all intents, were making the child worse.
Get to about 6 years old and the kid is crippled. The medicine has stopped working and doctor declares there’s nothing more that Modern Medicine can do – “Go Home And Let The Child Die. She’s got maybe 6 months at most”
(Wonder what temperature the kid would have reached by then. Antonio: Any clues?)
Of course mother is totally distraught and in final desperation takes the kid to a holistic doctor.
Straight away it’s discovered that the kid is horribly Coeliac with Zero Tolerance to any form of Gluten, esp wheat of course. But that the medicine it had been given effectivly trashed the kid’s intestines = just what wheat gluten does.
(Could you make it up?)
Veers dangerously back on topic: But also that the kid was insanely allergic to Blueberries.
Which her mother had been making as the kid’s breakfast for the previous 4+ years, having been convinced by Modern Medicine that:
“Blueberries are healthy”
The story did have a happy ending.
A requiem for dolphins also in the wind development zones
story tip
8 dolphins dead after washing ashore on New Jersey beach – ABC News (go.com)
“the organization’s veterinarian euthanized the other six”
The writers picked an odd way for the headline to express the concept.
The article is utter nonsense as the State of Washington the nations #1 producer enjoyed a RECORD crop last year of about 180 MILLION pounds.
Record-breaking Washington blueberry season
August 10, 2022
I live there see Blueberries in many stores for sale in large amounts.
Mississippi is not Washington — State or DC.
There are more Blueberries harvested than ever the record crop was just last year in my state on 24,000 acres hardly a sign of Blueberries failing in America.
The State of Mississippi is minor Blueberry producing state in 9th place with just 8.5 million pounds.
World Atlas,
“Most of Mississippi’s blueberry acreage lies in southeastern sections of the state. The reason for this concentration is because blueberries are native to areas with conditions similar to Mississippi’s southeast, such as pine forests. The ‘Rabbit-Eye’ is one of the most important native species grown commercially in the state. This particular variety produces quality fruits and is adapted to the local growing environment. Another reason for the concentration of blueberry acreage in the southeastern part of the state is that many researchers working in and around that area selected varieties and came up with cultivation practices for the crop that were region-specific. Mississippi registered a blueberry yield of 8.5 million pounds this past year.”
bolding mine
LINK
The issue is a false spring in February setting off the plants followed by a second winter blast in March freezing the blooms a fruit off. You folks up north don’t get long enough false springs to set the plants off.
Actually, that isn’t true as there have been years of early springs then a cold snap pop some of the crop down for the year in my region too.
He writes this silliness too he seems to ignore most of the country it can still grow in.
The below is nonsense since it grows fine up to zone 3 commercially and this report is about a single WEATHER event.
Can you get fresh blueberries from Washington in March?
Hehehehehehehehehe
Florida Man has got you covered!
The article makes the false assumption that all blueberries are Lowbush.
2021 was 21.89 million pounds from the Dangle State; the Southern Highbush grows em a bit large for toast but they make filling, jelly, jam, smoothies and pies just fine.
Florida has almost 5000 acres in production and lemme know if the twit starts hawing and humming about Blackberries and Raspberries.
Scalability is simply a question of propagation and price.
We’re working on varietal spread at two different universities down here.
Maybe the blueberry bushes in Mississippi bloomed too early (February was unusually warm in the southeastern US this year), then got hit with a late frost.
My parents had a summer house in the Poconos of northeastern PA, and there was an abandoned field of blueberry bushes (and weeds) about a mile away, and every July (in the 1970’s, when there were Ice Age warnings) we would gather a few gallons of blueberries. Of course, those blueberry bushes were adapted to cold winters, and didn’t put out leaves or flowers until May.
It seems as if mild weather in late winter is harmful to fruit trees, which can be fooled into blooming early, then have the embryos (which later develop into seeds and fruit) be killed by a late frost.
We have a large, mature apricot tree in our backyard in Utah. It seems that if late February and early March are unusually mild, the tree blooms in late March, and the seeds can get killed by a late frost, and we don’t get apricots that summer. If March is cold, with temperatures both above and below freezing, the tree waits until April to bloom, and the apricot harvest is abundant in July.
That is exactly what is happening. Occasionally is understandable, but it has happened in each of the last 5 years. The only people getting crops are the ones doing the full court press to keep local temps up – the large commercial growers are the only ones who can afford that level of effort.
Sorry WUWT, not one of your better articles, 1*.
Yeah I don’t know about this one. Anecdotally, my friends who live south of I-10 in Louisiana had a positively killer crop of blueberries last spring. They were sending me home with gallon ziplocks full from just three or four bushes. Budding followed by an unlucky late frost can get ya, but I am skeptical there is any trend on this in the deep south.
We have the teeny wild blueberries all around the cracks in the rock ledges. Also black berries. The bears and fox love em, you can see it in their scat. Southern VT. Don’t go out in the woods when they are ripening late summer w/o a .45…
There’s a vast range of hardiness and flowering time. If they repeatedly fail you need to change to a hardier and/or later flowering variety.
It has always been hard to grow blueberries south of I-10. She has the wrong hybrids or does not realize that weather including warm periods before last frost date happen a lot. Last year in Atlanta, we were almost a week after last frost date when we got bit. My poor kiwis (Issai).
PS – the local nursery probably sold her the wrong blueberries. They sell New York and California bunch grapes almost everywhere. About as they start producing, they will die off from a fungus, Anthracnose. That is why there are scuppernong and muscadine grapes from the extension programs in NC, GA and FL.
I never thought of blueberries as a tropical fruit. They grow wild on the tundra of N. Mn.
They are a cool climate fruit. We are just getting our second winter 4 or 5 degrees cooler than usual. Usually we hit right at the freezing point for a couple of days mid March. We just had two hard freeze days and it will be 80 tomorrow. It was 80 for a week at the beginning of the month after hitting 70 for the last half of Feb. I still haven’t gone to check my plums, which had already set fruit during the 80 degree spell.
If you look at the month on the monthly average it will show a nice “normal” 45 degree average low for the month. You won’t see the two 24 degree days in the middle on the monthly average.
Source of the graphs of US plant hardiness zones:
“Redrawing the Map: How the World’s Climate Zones Are Shifting”
by Yale Environment 360, 23 October 2018.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/redrawing-the-map-how-the-worlds-climate-zones-are-shifting
It would be interesting to see that graph with 2022 data, instead of 2012. But the US Dept of Ag still shows only the 2012 data:
https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/
Was WUWT hacked? This almost seems like a purposefully bad take to destroy credibility. Aren’t we the ones always saying weather is not climate to the alarmists who want to slap attribution to every local weather event? Late winter warm spell followed by a cold snap at the start of spring. Nothing new, not a trend, just an unfortunate event that has happened many times and will happen again. I’m sorry for the folks who lost their crops, but this sort of stuff doesn’t help the skeptic cause.
“I don’t know what the margin of error is in the UAH temperature record”
I do. The satellite instrumental resolution is about ±0.3 C. But neither UAH nor RSS graphic ever show the resolution bounds.
Here’s a podcast worth watching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNSPiMmuIvI
“There was a step down in solar magnetic activity in 2005. With the lags in the climate system, temperature peaked in 2016.”
There was a decline in the solar wind strength since 1995 which has driven a warm AMO phase. No lags are involved!
Freeze out of perennial fruit crops is a common problem. The most recent example is the grape crop in Southern France April 9th 2021. It is much more serious if the entire fruit orchard/vineyard is lost down to the roots.
In the Finger Lakes in NY (My Father was a Grape grower on Keuka lake) bad freezes happen about every 20 years but can also happen 3 years in a row (the problem of averages), In cold regions were freezes outs are a big risk, growers hedge their bets with a variety of grape of different levels of hardiness. Other’s simply spend the money on labor to bury their vines in three feet of soil in the fall….expensive but it works.
A 50-60 year freeze has to be devastating. My condolences to the Blueberry growers in Mississippi.
I grow a cold hardy variety…12 bushes for home use only. We produce plenty but of course we don’t always have fresh berries… but dried works, so does frozen and preserves.. They also make good wine….blend with grapes, blackberries and some elderberries. Also great in homemade Lambic.
One night at 20 below and they will be wiped out…that is if I live long enough to see it…. it could happen anytime or 200 years from now. or never. This is the life for perennial croppers
Not sure why more people don’t grow blueberries in their yards…. the fall foliage is beautiful and they are easy to grow….. you just need to keep acidifying them 2-3 x a year in neutral and more often in sweet soil.
Some of the worst freezes in the Finger Lakes occurred during the warmest years of the so called “global warming” period of the 1980’s and 1990’s. It’s just weather.
April 1st is days away!
Blueberries, blueberry relatives and variants grow well up into North Canada. There is no danger of a blueberry shortage.
I live in Virginia and I raise blueberries.
I’ve also lived in Louisiana and picked blueberries at a commercial ‘Pick-your-own’ farm.
Those blueberries grew 8-10 feet tall and had some of the largest blueberries I’ve ever seen.
Trouble is, South Louisiana rarely reached 32°F, i.e. freezing over several decades, until very recently.
Until, that is, a couple of very cold fronts swept down to South Texas and east over a few years.
All of the normally warm weather had the Louisiana blueberries flowered and fruit set before the cold blast came through.
It’s a lot easier to keep some fields warm a few nights than to keep them shaded and cold for weeks.
When the glacial period returns, Louisiana will be able to grow cold adapted blueberry plants, likely again.
Perhaps, everyone should help maintain beneficial warming to fend off the glacial period. Nuclear powered infra-red snow melter?
Regarding “Low of 23F (somewhere in Mississippi) this morning broke record by SIX DEGREES F”: Breaking a record temperature for a single date by 6 degrees F or more, even in places where weather records go back more than a century, is normal American weather and not evidence of long term trend of global temperature change in either direction. Please have a look at how record high and record low temperatures in Philadelphia (going back to 1872) have a lot of variation from one date of the year to an adjacent one, For extreme examples, Philadelphia’s record highs for 2/25 and 2/26 are 10 degrees F apart, and Philly’s record lows for 1/29 and 1/30 are 12 degrees F apart with the warmer one of these record lows being set in a recent year. And, I remember 4/12/1977, when Philly got to 92 which broke the previous record of 78. Also, sometime in the early 1970s, one of Philly’s major newspapers had a small article about March of that year being the first March (in about or a little over a century) without any weather records being broken. The title of that article was “March Sets Record for Nothing”.
Regarding “The second parallel universe is the temperature record which has been absolutely flat”: What’s up with following that with a graph that clearly shows a warming trend? The author of that graph (Dr. Roy Spencer) says its linear trend is +0.13 degree C per decade.
Regarding “There was a step down in solar magnetic activity in 2005. With the lags in the climate system, temperature peaked in 2016.”: The graph shown to support this claim has its peak at 1990. Is this a claim of lag of global temperature from solar activity being 26 years?
There is the sunspot count, which has record going back before 1965 and that peaked in the late 1950s.
There is also another matter for global temperature, which is ENSO. 2016 had one of the two greatest El Nino spikes of global temperature since the one of 1878, and March 2023 has the end of the third dip of a rare triple dip La Nina. Next time we get an El Nino of almost any intensity, in the likely event that global temperature sets a new record high even in JRA-55 and UAH TLT, how would one explain such continuation of the warming trend on solar activity?
There are Blueberries and June berries, they are not that same. What you buy in the store is generally June berries, not Blueberries. You don’t find Blueberries outside of the Northern Forest.