Discover the ancient roots of cranberries, the only fruit native to North America, and how climate change is impacting their future. Once cultivated by Indigenous peoples, cranberries have become a Thanksgiving tradition, now threatened by hotter, disease-ridden conditions due to climate change.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture warns of decreasing yields and fruit quality amidst increased disease pressure as ‘…more extreme and hotter weather is expected with climate change.’ It’s actively working to make cranberry farming more resilient.
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Harvested in autumn, cranberries depend on cool evenings to ripen. But warmer temperatures and delayed seasonal changes are causing them to rot on the vine, worsening harvest anxieties for growers, as noted by cranberry expert Hilary Sandler.
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Delayed harvesting and early frosts put cranberries at risk, with frost being ‘the number one killer of hopes and dreams’ in the words of cranberry grower Iain Ward.
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Cranberry bogs, their natural habitat, are prone to damage from floods and droughts, all becoming more frequent due to climate change according to USGS research cited in The New York Times.
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Top-producing states like Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington, and Oregon have seen 2021’s yield of 697 million pounds of cranberries, valued at $272 million, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.
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Climate change may eventually prompt cranberry farms to relocate further north, with some even contemplating a Massachusetts=New Jersey scenario, as reflected in research from Ambrook Research.
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