Global Warming And Growing Grapes
This is a question I often ask myself: “How will global warming effect my grape business in the future?” I know there are some of you that think this whole “global warming” thing gets way to much attention and there is nothing to worry about.
Whether you believe in or worry about global warming or not, the facts are that earth’s temperature is rising!
I certainly noticed climate changes since I’ve started farming way back in ’92 (wow, scary to think I’ve been growing grapes for 16 years 😐
When I spoke to my dad about his early days on our farm, he said that they packed Barlinka grapes (an old black seeded variety) until week 24 to week 26! I still grow a patch (about 0.8 hectares) of Barlinka, but the latest I pack them in recent years are +- week 18! That is quite a difference! It is a known fact that grapes mature quicker in hotter climates, so could this be an indication how much global warming is affecting our business?
Read this article I found on the Daily Green website:
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What scientists believe will happen at the end of this century
Thanks to global warming, well established wine-producing regions such as California’s Napa and Sonoma Valley as well as Northern France’s Burgundy region may be facing tough times ahead. The frequency of extremely hot days across the globe is beginning to redefine wine production as we know it and could prove disastrous for many famed wine grape growers.
Too hot days are wreaking havoc on grapes and growing conditions. Grapes used in premium wines need a consistent climate; even the smallest changes in temperature can mean the difference in taste and quality between an expensive wine produced by century old vines and those used for some ubiquitous cooking wine. Findings in a paper published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier this year state that within the U.S., regions that are suitable for growing premium wine grapes may be reduced by 50% and quite possibly by over 80% by the end of the century if warming trends continue on as expected.
No where has this been felt more than by winemakers in California’s Napa Valley. According to an article in USA Today, “In Napa, the minimum temperature has gone up nearly 5 degrees over the past 75 years, while growing season has increased by more than 50 days.” Because of increased temperatures, a grape’s necessary natural fermentation is advanced thus making them harvest-ready all the sooner.
Crush season is happening earlier for many as a result. Once seen as a September ritual, grapes are now ripening at a faster rate and a month earlier than normal and require harvesting during the night when temperatures are cooler. Those vineyards set in climates more conducive to wine grape growing in the U.S. are faring well and may usurp some of Northern California’s claim to the multi-million dollar wine industry. Upstate New York’s Finger Lake region, Long Island’s North Fork as well as Washington State’s Puget Sound and both Michigan’s coastal zone and Virginia wine-making regions aren’t as affected by the warming trends just yet.
Article from the Daily Green Website http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/6296
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Is global warming all bad for growing grapes?
Nope, some areas are actually benefiting from this. If we look at countries like Canada, some wine growers there now plant grape varieties that would previously never survive their cold winters!
In the northern province of Champagne in France, the annual average daily temperature changed from 10.3 ºC to almost 12ºC over the last couple of years and this temperature changes, actually improved the quality of the champagne made there.
In the end, the rising temperatures may force growers to manage vines differently to produce similar wine styles or quality, or to plant different varieties better suited to the changing climate.
What should we do? I really don’t know, but one thing is for sure; we grape growers need to adapt to these climate changes to keep us in the game! We need to constantly look at things like canopy management, disease control and vine vigour, to keep our grape vine in the best shape ever.
Enjoy the weekend.
Danie
Facing the changes in the climate alone isn’t fair!
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Hello Danie,
About the apparent Earth warming effect:
In South Carolina We had an all time high temperature of 104 deg F plus a severe drought in 2007. This is Warming but is CO2 and water vapor “greenhouse gases” our biggest problem?? Is Water Vapor a Problem or part of the Solution?????????? Can Gambling with Polker Carbon Credits solve this Problem that may have a complex and difficult solution??? Will Carbon Gambling Schemes end up better than the recent Financial Gambling schemes???? If warming is accelrating, what is causing the accelertion?? We need some serious TRUTH, not hype.
Why don’t we ever talk about the Created Earth (global) “DRYING of the Inner Continents” regions for the last 1000 years.? There is vast historical evidence of this on every continent. Many of you know examples of continental and even polar drying. Drying causes an earth temperature rise and a vicious cycle of more drying etc, etc. Water is the great temperature modulator of the created earth.
Drying or dehydration causes or effects a rapid temperature rise because water the most versital & best Intelligently Designed heat transfer fluid known. Water also stores heat very well. Deserts are very hot in the Summer and relatively cold in the Winter due to the lack of water modulation. Most of the carbon organic matter is oxidized out as CO2. Dry land = Hot land in the sun. Moist land = cooler productive land. (That is a big advantage of Danie’s grape canopy…cooler soil)
Where is vast historical evidence for continental “hinterland” drying for the last 800-1500 years???? Example: In far West Texas/ New Mexico/Mexico Rio Grande region you can hike out into the “desert flats” and find many areas where there are large amounts of Indian pottery and artifacts denoting many old villages. Today this land will not even support a decent population of mice, rats and small rattlesnakes. The temperatures can run to 115degF or more with RH of 5% . Humans cannot settle there today without much Water. The Museums at El Paso TX will tell you that these Indians lived and farmed around shallow lakes until 800 AD to 1200+- AD. There were lakes all around these regions back in the southwestern US and N Mexico. Today it is extremely DRY and HOT except near the few rivers or springs of course. WHY?? 1000 yr DRYIMG.
More Examples: the 5000 year old Bristlecone pines have been dying for centuries. and cannot re propogate themselves on this arid barren land. Why??Long term Continental and Polar Drying plus more recent heating from burning and CO2.
Many other Examples of long term Continental Drying can be found in North Africa, Afgahnistan, India, China, Gobi desert and the Middle East, etc. etc. (Deserts along the coasts such as in Chile SA are not inner continent drying)
Are many Polar regions and some high mountian glacial not getting enough snow because there is not enough GOOD WATER VAPOR for highly reflective snow????? Water Vapor is one of our friends NOT an evil greenhouse gas!! Snow forms very well ar a little below freezing. WATER VAPOR is what the rain and snow cooling comes from. We need more water reservoirs on Earth, not less, in order to cool the Earth. We do not have space for mega lakes.
Fritz SC USA
Feel free to correct any and all errors and many omissions you find in this letter. Some of you experts should comment on the CO2+H2O + light + sugar cycle and other aspects of the Carbon cycles.
Hi Danny,
Thank you for your mail.
concerning the global warming it seems that the weather in summer is becoming hot and too wet in our area (middle of Europe). We are about 550 m above sealevel, so that will mean a lot of trouble with fungus diseases.
regards to the other side of earth
Over the last 1 million years there have been 8 or 9 Ice Ages. This means every 100,000 years or so. This also means logically that there have been Global Warmings every 100,000 years or so. I am told that it takes 80.000 years to cool down to an Ice Age and only 20,000 years to warm up again. We happen to be on the way up to the peak of the latest Global Warming when perhaps the likes of Britain will once again have tropical forests as fossils show. Thereafter we will be cooling down again to our next Ice Age.
I suppose that, the next time (after this one) that we encounter a Global Warming, this Global Warming that we are in now will not be remembered in the known history of the future human race just like the history of past Global Warmings have been lost in the mists of time. Or maybe if it is remembered then we will get the blame for it despite the fact that it is a natural happening.
I live in Scotland and our winters are nowhere near as cold as they were 10 years ago but I think it’s a natural climate change probably helped by human activity ,I don’t hear any of the world leaders mention all of the atomic bombs that were exploded in the last 50 years maybe that’s had something to do with it.
No matter what you think, we must farm based on what the almanac is currently telling us about growing and what the weather is doing at this current nexus. It may be warmer, it may be colder, and I’m sure it fluctuates given the long life of the earth, so be it. None of these issues should warrant such rude responses. All ya gotta say is, I don’t agree and instead I think that… blah blah blah. This world wouldn’t be nearly so interesting if we were all the same and all believed the same way. So, go bark up other trees!!
Danie,
An article in our “local” (60 miles away) paper last spring noted that within twenty years, grape growing in the Willamette Valley, here in Oregon/USA, will no longer be viable, because of climate change. “They” predict that grape growing will move to the coast. Today on the coast we had summer weather and it’s almost December.
Hello
Thanks for your mail. It is interesing reading an the comments offered by readers are good.
I am 67 years old from India.I have worked about 40 years of my life in the open farm land as a marketing man with a Agri Input Company. Helping farmers to understand the modern farm technologies and bringing the Lab on to the Land.During these yrars more so now I have definately noticed the changes in the climate. The rains were earlier by more than 30 days and we had heavy monsoons. The cold wave which normaly hit the Northern part in Dec has started sometimes around 20th Nov. Yes there is a effect of global warming and it would go a long way to changing Agricultural practices and cropping pattern.
Satish
I am concern that global warming has been created by our own way of polluting the planet earth. We are having extreme and sudden climate changes that causes havoc not only to people but to plants and animals. The bad news is not only for grape growers but also to farmers who suffer from severe draught for lack of rain, if there is more rain, it will be flood. There are more research that has been provided on this issue. But, by just going to green will not solve the problem.
Global warming as promulgated by Gore and his cronies is an un-mitigated hoaxe. Insiders in on the hoaxe have already made millons and stand to make a lot more if we continue to by into it. The over all climate has been changing and cycling up and down for billions of years. Get a life. Over all global temps have been cooling for the past few years. So what.
For billions of years, humans have not been putting outrageous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. We’ve done that in the last couple of hundred years. It would be naive to think that has no effect.
I live in Eastern Ontario at 45.51N, 77.71W. I have a small vineyard of cold adapted verieties with names like Sabrevois, Delisle, Paririe Star and Kay Gray. Although these vines are thriving, I must bury them each fall for winter protection. The winter temperatures here can get down to -45 C without wind chill. Everything in life is a compromise and cold hardy vines were not bred for great wine. I can make a good but not great wine. The prospect of being able to grow any of the noble grape varieties in Eastern North America is quite exciting.
Superfarmer
I have lived here in E. Texas all of my life. We normaly have hot and humid summers. Usualy the temperature would get up to 100 during the day and fall to about 85 at night 3 months out of the year. This year we broke the 98 mark earlier than normal, but not as consistantly throuh the summer with most nights geting down to 75 and 80. This has been the pattern for the last 4 years. My dad is from further up North and mentioned that when he was young the Missippi river would freeze over during winter, this hasn’t happened in recent times.I would like to find some records from when Mr. Munson was growing grapes at the turn of the 1900 and see what he had to say about the temperature and climate then.
I, along with more than a few climatologists, believe that the current global warming is one of the world’s biggest hoaxes. Climate does change and has for 1000’s of years usually in 200-400 year swings. Using the last 20 years as proof is NOT scientific. The warmest decade of the past 100 years was the 30’s. Warming is not always bad. If we’d not had warming in past 20,000 years, we’d be living on glaciers in most of the world. People don’t have much to do with warming. Ocean currents and other factors have much more effect on climate. Ask the people in Alaska… they welcome warming. Enough on warming… more on grapes, and wine.
Danie – I suspect every agricultural sector of the global economy is tuned into the “what if’s” regarding the global warming discussion. As a southern Oregonian I am used to mild winters and the occasional century heat of our very dry summers. This climate has enrichened our grape industry. As a person with strong scientific training, I am waiting for “true” evidence we are entering a period of warming due to man’s actions. I personally think not. When I start to see the southern varietals prospering in Canada, I will humbly reconsider. ‘Til then, man needs to keep learning about the many foibils of Nature. Thanks for your work.
Hi Danie, thanks for the info on global warming i found it interesting ….. I have actualy picked in very warm climates to extreme cold climates as you have said i think the ONLY differance is that the grapes do mature earlier and that harvest takes place at night , which is the usual procedure here in australia .. even tho most of our wine grapes are grown in the cooler climate ereas we do harvest during the day for table grapes wich are mainly alll hand picked in very hot climate … we have some top wines here in oz country … and quite proud of the fact that we we are up there with the best , so to speak, with the finished product.
I believe that our climate is changing….global warming…if you will. Whether it is part of a “normal” long term climate cycle, perhaps enhanced by man’s pollution, I can’t say, but our winter temperatures are quite a bit warmer now than I remember as a child in Eastern Idaho, USA. I’m a beginning grape grower, but the climate here in Northern Utah seems to be good for grape growing.
I definately believe in global warming. People who dont need to open their eyes… i have worked outdoors all my life and have noticed a definate change here in Australia. i have said to my fellow friends in the past 10 years, that the seasons seem to be changing; moving forward somehow. im not sure at this point how it is going to effect the growing of grapes as i have only been in the industry for the past 6 years.. Mmmmmm Cheers Elke’
Don’t tell me you buy into that crap – we just had a record cold spell over most of the U.S for this early in the year. My dad told me a long time ago, that they’d figure out a way to tax the air we breathe – seems like they’ve found one. And we had record flooding across the U.S. this past sping, but that hasn’t happened for over 20 years. (By the way, what ever happened to that hole in the ozone layer?)heh heh
Global warming is about _average_ temperatures. Variability doesn’t change much, so factors like El Nino and La Nina affect weather seasonally. Just having a cooler-than-normal week or season means nothing about global warming. Not even all locations on the globe necessarily see the same or any increase in average temperature. That said, there are plenty of shortcomings in model predictions of climate because so many feedbacks are poorly understood or even not recognized, but the difference there is more “how much warming” than whether or not warming will continue. Oh, and as for the ozone hole, that is really a separate issue from greenhouse gasses. The hole is improving thanks to worldwide action on reducing CFC emissions. Remember when industry said they couldn’t do that? Innovation rose to the challenge then and will again to reduce greenhouse gasses.