Traverse City Record-Eagle

Grand Traverse County

November 16, 2009

Climate change impact on cherries studied

Orchards are sensitive to weather variations

By STEVE DAVY

LANSING -- An international research project will focus on how weather changes impact northern Michigan's signature fruit.

A $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant will help researchers study climate change and the tart cherry industry.

The goal of the five-year study is to provide growers with a global perspective, helping growers in Northern Michigan and Eastern Europe see how climate change affects their orchards in a way that reflects the growing international nature of the industry.

About 70 percent of the United States' tart cherries, which are used primarily in drinks and desserts, come from Michigan.

Nowhere else in the world produces more tart cherries as a region than the Traverse City area. The state's top-producing counties are Leelanau, Antrim, Grand Traverse, Oceana and Berrien, according to the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture.

It's a good industry to study because cherry orchards are sensitive to weather and require long-term investment -- about a 20-to-30 year commitment, said Julie Winkler, a climatologist at Michigan State University. Cherry growers have limited flexibility compared to farmers who grow annual cereal grains and can plant something different the next year.

In 2002, a devastating late-spring frost wiped out the tart cherry crop in Michigan. Imports from Poland filled the market demand. The freeze and resulting imports raised awareness that the industry is increasingly global.

Now Winkler and her colleagues will look at the effects of climate change across the entire industry to get a better idea of how the Poland and Michigan industries influence each other.

"What we are trying to do here is come up with a method that gives us the type of detail that stakeholders in the industry need that you would have for a traditional local/regional sector, but then try and have this global focus," Winkler said.

Climate change is hard to notice because it takes place over decades.

Don Gregory, a founding member of Traverse City-based Shoreline Fruit and a tart cherry farmer for almost 40 years, says the best evidence is what's happened to his own harvest dates.

"We've had some years where we've started harvesting on July 4th and finished harvesting cherries as early as the last week of July, "Gregory said. "We had other years like this year where we actually finished harvesting cherries in the middle of August -- that was almost 25 days later than last year. We see these variations on a year-to-year basis. A lot of the variation in crops is weather-related issues."

Steve Davey writes for Capital News Service at Michigan State University

It used to be common for Grand Traverse Bay to freeze over in the winter. Now the bay consistently remains unfrozen. An unfrozen bay results from warmer winter weather that usually means an earlier blossoming of tart cherry trees. With earlier buds, cherries are more vulnerable to damage from a late-spring freeze.

Brian Beauchamp, a policy specialist at the Michigan Land Use Institute in Traverse City, says climate change is likely the cause of the warmer winters and affects agriculture in northern Michigan.

"Climate change raises a lot of questions," Beauchamp said. "How do farmers adapt and change? It is important to bring together the regional agricultural sector under a common theme of resilience."

Steve Davey writes for Capital News Service at Michigan State University

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