How can climate change impact apple production in the United States? This is what a recent study published in Environmental Research Letters hopes to address as a team of researchers from Washington State University (WSU) investigated how decades of climate change have impacted the cycle of apple trees from start to finish. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, farmers, and the public better understand the short- and long-term impacts of climate change on fruit production and the steps that can be taken to mitigate them.
For the study, the researchers analyzed climate trends between 1979 and 2022 from a meteorological dataset to ascertain how fruit production is impacted by climate change, including cold degree days, chill portions, growing degree days (GDD), and extreme heat days. In the end, the researchers found that Yakima County in Washington, Kent County in Michigan, and Wayne County in New York, which are three of the largest apple producing counties in the United States, were the most impacted regions in the nation. The team reached this conclusion based on increasing GDD and decreasing cold degree days.
“We shouldn’t take the delicious apples we love to consume for granted,” said Dr. Deepti Singh, who is an assistant professor in the School of the Environment at WSU and a co-author on the study. “Changing climate conditions over multiple parts of the growth cycle pose potentially compounding threats to the production and quality of apples. Moving forward, it would be helpful to think about adaptations at different stages of apple growth that can minimize overall harmful impacts.”
This study comes as the United States experienced 24 large climate-related disasters in 2024, only being superseded by 28 in 2023. This included hurricanes, severe storm events, wildfires, and winter storms. Therefore, taking steps to mitigate climate change could result in decreasing these devastating events, including how it negatively impacts fruit production in the United States.
How will climate change impact productive apple regions in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Environmental Research Letters, EurekAlert!, WSU Insider, Environment America
Featured Image Credit: Bob Hubner, Washington State University