Classic British apples may die out and be swapped for varieties from New Zealand and Japan, as climate breakdown means traditional fruits are no longer viable.
Apples such as pippin or the the ancient nonpareil, grown in Britain since the 1500s, are struggling in the changed climate because there are not enough “chilling hours” for the trees to lie dormant in winter and conserve energy for growing fruit.
Scientists at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, are planting 40 apple trees, a third of which are heritage varieties that once grew in its Georgian kitchen gardens. Another third are new varieties bred to need less cold over winter, and the final third are from warmer countries including South Africa. The varieties will be compared to see which has the best crop in London’s warming temperatures.
The crucial word there is that third last in that quote. OK, so the temp will change in London. As it will in Brum, in Sheffield, Newcastle, Dundee and Thurso. Thre is currently a temp gradient as we go north, as there will be in the future. At which point specific cultivars of apples will do best 10, 20, 50 miles further north than they do now. As Scotland isn’t well known as a source of apples we’ve quite a large space to move them into as well.
Sigh.
If they were growing in England in 1500, they were coping with a climate warmer than now. So more envirobollocks.
Em, in 1500 it was a bit colder than now as the medieval climate optimum had ended.
Prior to refrigeration but with rail transport, the Tay Valley between Perth & Dundee was mostly Apple & Pear trees.
Now it’s 50% raspberry & strawberry.
This also seems to assume that France & Spain don’t grow Apples.
Humanity has been selectively breeding Apples for millennia to get ones that crop or taste better, so who cares if some sour o low yielding heritage varieties are replaced by a superior variety.
We’ll no put up wi’ an invasion of new English apple trees fae Tory colonialists. We’ll only accept EU varieties.
So “climate breakdown” is a new scare description to add to “climate crisis”, “climate disaster” and “climate catastrophe”.
We’ve no shortage of chilling hours up here, free to anybody that wants them. I really, really wish global warming would hurry up. Will happily accept apples in exchange.
“climate breakdown” .
Fuck me, how many variations are they going to come up with? (or is it perhaps, someone has found a Thesaurus)…..
KevinS, as I composed, you posted…..
When the raspberries and seed potatoes move to Iceland and the apples (nonpareil and French Golden delicious if you like) replace them in Scotland then down here below the M4 we can have Okume plantations, make ukuleles and sing Stephen Foster songs instead. Nice.
“grown in Britain since the 1500s”
Hmm, I wonder why the 1500s? Could it be that it was considerably warmer in the UK before then, and the varieties that thrived in those conditions were finished off by cold winters? And the only survivors were the ones that preferred colder winters?
Jim, we all know the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ and ‘The Little Ice Age’ were figments of peoples’ imagination. Michael Mann said so.
I imagine it had less to do with the hardiness of the tree itself and more a question of how early it would blossom and the presence or absence of pollinators at the right time. As a rule of thumb, a tree that fruited successfully in Normandy would have a good chance of being equally productive in the south of England.
We have a rare “heritage” apple tree in our garden: “Sussex Knobby Russet”. It crops well, but they are miserable little apples.
I’d gladly swap it for a nice Pink Lady.
So now we can do away with those non native trees that were imported in the 1500s and return to a native variety that thrived before them.
I thought greenies hated non native species of anything, they should be pleased.
BinD, That would have been the Roman Warm Period and slightly beyond. Avalon, Hannibal crossing the Alps, and all that..
‘I thought greenies hated non native species of anything’
This doesn’t apply to humans BiND. There it’s the skin colour that counts. And the sex of course.
If climate change is real, why isn’t anyone producing wine north of Blois in the Loire now? They make wines a few miles south, have been since the mid-19th century. But not much north. If the climate is warming, wouldn’t it make growing grapes more viable.
Does anyone have any evidence of this for the past 100 years? Somewhere dropping out of producing tomatoes or melons that was marginal, and people have stopped, or marginal, and people are growing them now?
Does anyone have a single thing around climate change where a party without an angle can name an effect? So, no, not someone who runs trains yelling about climate change in order to get government to put their finger on the scales in their favour by banning flights. Or angling for a grant.
I would be happy to see Fuji apples growing here. I love those and they are as rare as hen’s teeth now after a fad for them a few years ago. I get really fed up of Pink Ladies.
BoM4 – a number of champagne house have bought/established vineyards in the UK. Others haven’t.
BoM4, that’s why articles about the impacts of climate change always use the verb “may” and never “will”
Isn’t London’s warming climate due to increased Human activity, not fake climate change?
More people, more buildings and hard surfaces, more central heating/air-con, more vehicles, more activity?
The population of London in 1500 was around 630 000, and London was a series of separate villages, bogs, marshes, rivers around a central built-up square mile. Today the population is 8.6 million and growing, and all those bogs and marshes drained, rivers diverted underground and those villages have joined up into one big conurbations 32 miles across.
Affected the local climate much?
TMB,
“BoM4 – a number of champagne house have bought/established vineyards in the UK. Others haven’t.”
English wine is not a real business. It’s a hobby thing, like men who own a share in a racehorse, or football clubs, or wealthy MILFs spending their husbands money opening a bookshop. The people do it either do it as a fun thing (like brewing your own beer) or they made a lot of money in the city and can subsidise a winery.
The problem with England is unreliability. Things like this.
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9978704.10m-down-the-drain-as-nyetimber-wine-crop-scrapped/
https://blog.bbr.com/2017/04/01/notes-vineyard-budburst/
You can’t make great wines by doing that, unless you have a sugardaddy propping you up (like Nyetimber does). The producers in France, Germany, Tasmania that reliably grow are going to outperform you.
If climate change is real, why isn’t anyone producing wine north of Blois in the Loire now?
Champagne do you?
BoM4 – I’m confused by your comment. Are you saying that I am mistaken or that the champagne houses are stupid?
Another good thing about gloable warming. we won’t have to send epidemiologists so far south into shitholes to research tropical diseases. They’ll be able to WFH.
BoM4: “If climate change is real, why isn’t anyone producing wine north of Blois in the Loire now? ”
I think the german wine industry would like to have a word with you regarding that.
Unless, of course, you feel that the Mösel and Riesling wines are “hobbyist”.
Currently wine is commercially produced even in Clogland, with the hardier varieties above the Rhine.. I believe there’s actual commercial vinyards in southern Sweden even.
Almost like in… oh wait.. the Medieval Warm Period…
And climate change *is* real, and has always been real. We wouldn’t be here without it, even.
It’s just that we can do bugger all about 95-99% of the factors that cause it. And nothing in Nature, except the hyperspecialised species are remotely bothered by it.
As long as there’s no mountain sized comets/meteors involved, 3.8 billion years of accumulated survival of that kind of stuff has actually built us to adapt to this very thing, along with most other life on this globe.
Climate change is real, but there is no climate crisis/emergency/breakdown/whatevertheycomeupwithtomorrow. Period.
If I understand my viniculture, a lot of the reason that vines don’t prosper particularly well in the UK is that it gets N.Atlantic weather rather than continental. Unsettled weather during the summer. There’s a diagonal runs up the map from SW to NE indicates a limit.
Em, in 1500 it was a bit colder than now as the medieval climate optimum had ended.
With something like orchards you’re talking about a considerable time for them to become established. In those days, couple of centuries. Nobody’s going to say “Oh look, the climate got cooler. Let’s plant apples.” It’s going to be a process over a lengthy period.
On the Spain thing we had apple trees at our house in the mountains. Got some fair crops although the quinces did better. The oranges, lemons & figs thrived. Well below the snow line. And the other side of the mountains it’s the desert they shot the spaghetti westerns in. Europe doesn’t go any further south than here.
“I think the german wine industry would like to have a word with you regarding that.
Unless, of course, you feel that the Mösel and Riesling wines are “hobbyist”.”
I don’t know much about German wine production, or the climate around Koblenz. The point is more about whether they have moved or not. Because we’d expect that, wouldn’t we?
“Currently wine is commercially produced even in Clogland, with the hardier varieties above the Rhine.. I believe there’s actual commercial vinyards in southern Sweden even.
Almost like in… oh wait.. the Medieval Warm Period…”
And how good is it? I’ve never seen either for sale by specialists here, let alone Aldi. Like people make still wine here, as far north as Chester. Most of it seems to be a tourist thing. Visit the vineyard, have a look around, stay for lunch, take some wine. English still wine is absolute piss. Sparkling is good, but there’s better value to be had from elsewhere.
BIS,
“If I understand my viniculture, a lot of the reason that vines don’t prosper particularly well in the UK is that it gets N.Atlantic weather rather than continental. Unsettled weather during the summer. There’s a diagonal runs up the map from SW to NE indicates a limit.”
I’ve always figured it’s something like this. Reims is actually slightly colder, on average, than Sussex. But winemakers really worry about hard frosts. It’s a big risk and they can destroy most of a crop and maybe Reims gets less of that? You can mitigate against a frost with fans, or lighting fires, but that’s a big cost.
Climate change is quite obviously real. After the first people lived in Europe, the ice sheet covered all of Scotland. You can be certain that there were no apple trees growing under (or on top of) kilometers of ice. The climate has always changed and we must adapt.
I live on the outer edge of North West London. Lots of green space land around.
I drove to my Mum’s 25 miles north in Bucks this week several times leaving at about 7 am and arriving about 8am. In other words as the sun rose and temperatures rose with it.
Temp at my house -1 or -2.
Temp in Watford – 3 or -4. (5 miles away)
Temp north of Hemel Hemstead -6 to -8. (15 miles away)
My guess is Kew would be even warmer that my part of London.