The changes have already been happening for some time.

Talk to local long time perennial gardeners in your area who grow vegetables. The maturity date of how long it takes a plant to produce a fruit or come to maturity is pretty stable. Much like a pregnant human will still take nine months to fully form a little human.

But when to plant will change. It will be earlier for most.

The earth has been going through warming and cooling cycles since the beginning of time. Plants have been on the earth way before we were. In the middle ages the temperatures were cooler than they are now. The plants survived. If there are major changes in the overall temperatures then we'll see some change in crop yields and maturity dates. The change so far has been very minor. I build spacevehicles have noticed the increased proton activity from the sun since they've been recorded. We are seeing warming but don't let the baffons who are telling you that we cause global warming get to you. The sun is warming us up, just like all the natural cycles that we've seen before. People are not the reason for the warming, nature is. Did you see the study that was meant to prove that the icecaps were melting and people were causing it? Under the icecap they discovered that people once lived there! Don't worry. The plants will survive though there could be some redistribution over the globe in the next 400 years. Also, the change won't be very big over our life times and we can't do anything about it. It's up to nature.

The media just started caring about global warming, it has been going on for some time now.

I doubt that GWing will speed up a particular maturity date. Say for example if the same variety of seed X is planted in Fla and NY on the same date (picking June 15th at random). It should mature in the same number of days in both areas. Though GWing will extend the average growing season in both places and in particular more northerly areas.

Someone has been smoking the corn stalks instead of eating the corn. .6 of one degree in 100 years. God I am hot.

Not to mention Mars is also warming. How on earth did we get SUV's on Mars!?

I think maturity dates will be just fine. :-)

The National Arbor Day Foundation has updated the plant hardiness zone map. Some areas will see an increase in the number of plants available at garden centers.

Global warming has become a political tool. Regardless of how the politicians portray climate change, it is hard to ignore this startling new piece of evidence that has been thrown into the spotlight.

The National Arbor Day Foundation has released new plant hardiness zone maps based upon data from 5,000 National Climatic Data centers across the continental United States. The foundation also released a map that shows the changes that have taken place in hardiness zones throughout the U.S. since 1990, the year of the last map update.

The plant hardiness zones are a guide that gardeners can use to determine which plants will grow best in a particular climate. The zones divide the U.S. and Canada into eleven areas depending on average minimum temperature. There is a 10 degree Fahrenheit difference between zones. For example, zone 4 could get as cold as -30 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, while zone 5 could get as cold as -20 degrees.

Many areas of the U.S. have gone up a zone. In 1990, most of upstate NY was a zone 5, northern NY was a zone 4, and the higher elevations of the Adirondacks were a zone 3. On the updated map, much of the upstate region is a zone 6, while only a small area remains a zone 5. Northern NY remains a zone 4, but much of the Adirondack region is now also a zone 4.

Some garden centers in Upstate NY are now stocking plants that will survive in zone 6. Because of this, gardeners will find a wider selection when shopping for plants this year. A side benefit is that the growing season will be longer throughout much of the U.S....

>Are the plants equiped with capabilities to make adjustments as the Global >warming changes?

As someone else pointed out, any change will be gradual. Keep in mind, that the changes being talked about are *average* temperatures. We'll still have the normal year to year variations that are much larger than anything global warming will throw at us.

Almost all the plants we grow in out gardens can grow across several temperature zones. For gardening purposes, they will be fine.

Alex

Yes, the one word they always leave off is "average". Just like when they say the "normal temperature for today is ..." It's not a "normal" temp, it's an "average" temp. The average of what is going up anyway? The 100 years worth of records we have? How long has the earth been here and we base global warming on 100 years worth of records??

For example the "record high" temeratures for the month of July for where I live we all set in the following years:

4 in 1911
2 in 1916
1 in 1917
1 in 1926
4 in 1930
4 in 1931
2 in 1933
2 in 1934
6 in 1936
2 in 1941
2 in 1988
1 in 1995

It appears to me that it was a lot warmer back in the 30's, and it appears that we've cooled down since then. You can talk about averages going up all you want, but I bet the average temp in 1936 was a lot higher than it is now because they had 70 less years of data to work with. The fact is, they don't have enough data to really know anything. All they do is scare people to get more funding to do more research.

All that being said, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be mindfull of polution and try to stop it. That also doesn't mean that we should look for better more environmentally friendly fuels and products. I'm not for polution in any way. I just think the earth cools and warms in cycles.

BTW, the "record low" temps were all set very randomly between 1900 and 2001 with no pattern except that NONE of them were set in the 30's.

It appears to me that it was a lot warmer back in the 30's, and it appears that we've cooled down since then. You can talk about averages going up all you want, but I bet the average temp in 1936 was a lot higher than it is now because they had 70 less years of data to work with. The fact is, they don't have enough data to really know anything. All they do is scare people to get more funding to do more research.

No one needs to scare anyone to get funding. Facts are facts. Humans will document and record even if they aren't paid. It's human nature. Fortunately, some of them happen to be scientists.

The fact is, there is plenty of information to support the fact that global temperatures are absolutely, without a doubt, rising. This doesn't mean we won't have record lows. The extremes can be greater.

Is the global climate changing? Is the world getting warmer?

Yes. But let’s look more closely at what that means. We can start with the time from 1856 to the present. We have a good record of global temperature for this recent period. Accurate temperature measurements were made at many locations around the world.

There have been some sharp year-to-year fluctuations. During some periods, such as the 1940s, there was a drop in global temperature, but the overall trend is up when we look at the past century and a half.

What if we examine a longer period of time�"say, the past 1,000 years? This presents a problem since accurate records of temperature were not kept prior to the middle of the 19th century. But there are ways of estimating temperature from other information such as the size of growth rings on trees and the composition of ice taken from Antarctica and Greenland. The records used for these indirect measurements of temperature are called “proxy data.” Find out more about how temperature estimates are made from proxy data.

{{gwi:82141}}

The average global temperature has risen in the past 150 years. The period from 1961 to 1990 is the comparison point for this graph. This is represented by the horizontal line at 0. The anomaly, or variation from this average, is shown for each year.

The average global temperature for a given year is indicated by a blue or red dot. For example, the year 1900 was 0.2 C degree (0.36 F degree) cooler than the 1961-1990 average. The warmest year in this record was 1998, nearly 0.6 C degree (1.1 F degrees) warmer than the 1961-1990 average.

The heavy blue and red line traces the average global temperature for five year periods. For example, the average temperature for 1998-2002, which is centered on 2000, was 0.4 C degree (0.7 F degrees) above the 1961-1990 average. The period from 1958 to 1962, centered on 1960, was right on that average. Graph based on data from the Climatic Research Unit.

The next graph shows the average temperature of the Northern Hemisphere over the last two millennia.

The portion to the right of the vertical line corresponds to the time period covered by the first graph�"about 150 years. In the context of the past 2,000 years the late-20th-century increase in temperature is quite sharp. What about the rest of this time span? The period of several hundred years up to the 19th century has been referred to as the Little Ice Age in Europe. The exact dates are not agreed upon. There is much evidence of a cooler climate than exists today or in the warm period from about 900 to 1100. Glaciers advanced. The Baltic Sea and the River Thames in London frequently froze during winter. Growing seasons were shortened. During especially severe winters livestock died in large numbers. The climate was also cooler in the northeastern part of North America. However, it is not clear if the cooling was global or limited to the North Atlantic region.

{{gwi:82142}}

"All that being said, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be mindfull of polution and try to stop it. That also doesn't mean that we should look for better more environmentally friendly fuels and products. I'm not for polution in any way. I just think the earth cools and warms in cycles."

I absolutely agree with that statement.

Fact is fact also, there is evidence that the earth is warming. But I will also go back to my original statement in regards to it being a solar issue, not human caused. Please see the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Global Warming on Mars

Global warming is a fact.

Period.

There is overwhelming evidence for its existence and for the fact that we humans are to blame.

But De Nile ain't just a river in Egypt.

Frost dates will change, but I don't think maturity dates will. The main problem I see, at least where I live, is higher summer heat and greater aridity. We'll need heat and drought resistant varieties. And some plants that we could grow before won't do very well in the higher temperatures. OTOH, other varieties may become viable as our zones change.

There are already more wildfires here in the west, and if the dust storm that overtook Phoenix is any indication, we may see a return to Dustbowl conditions.

The types of bugs and diseases in a given area will likely change, and we'll have to learn how to battle the new ones.

When I finally get up the money to landscape my sorry excuse for a lawn, I'm going to be landscaping it for zone 7, because I figure that by the time I get done paying off the house, I'll be in zone 7.

Maturity dates (assuming we plant the same varieties) may be the one stable point in all this! ;-)

No offense, but I literally fell off my chair laughing when I saw the newscast about the dust storm. I have lived in Phoenix my entire life, and dust storms like that have been happening every year during monsoon season. Like clockwork. The storms build up in the mountains surrounding Phx, as they reach the valley they sometimes die out, and a rush of wind moves in. As this is a desert, there is a lot of dirt to pick up and carry. It can be a very beautiful sight to see, the wall of dust moving in. Especially at sunset, it casts a beautiful orange/red glow everywhere.

That actually was not even a bad one. I have sen ones that tear entire roofs off.

It upset me a bit to see the big deal they made out of a natural phenomenon that has been happening in this climate for centuries. I guess all the media hype just upsets me a bit.

Then don't watch it. Problem solved.

(However there are plenty of people who really do need to learn about it and do their part to not contribute to it.)

seraki

Did you read your link? Most scientists do NOT attribute the melting polar caps on Mars to the sun:

"Planets' Wobbles

The conventional theory is that climate changes on Mars can be explained primarily by small alterations in the planet's orbit and tilt, not by changes in the sun.

"Wobbles in the orbit of Mars are the main cause of its climate change in the current era," Oxford's Wilson explained. (Related: "Don't Blame Sun for Global Warming, Study Says" [September 13, 2006].)

All planets experience a few wobbles as they make their journey around the sun. Earth's wobbles are known as Milankovitch cycles and occur on time scales of between 20,000 and 100,000 years.

These fluctuations change the tilt of Earth's axis and its distance from the sun and are thought to be responsible for the waxing and waning of ice ages on Earth.

Mars and Earth wobble in different ways, and most scientists think it is pure coincidence that both planets are between ice ages right now.

"Mars has no [large] moon, which makes its wobbles much larger, and hence the swings in climate are greater too," Wilson said.

No Greenhouse

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block in Abdussamatov's theory is his dismissal of the greenhouse effect, in which atmospheric gases such as carbon dioxide help keep heat trapped near the planet's surface.

He claims that carbon dioxide has only a small influence on Earth's climate and virtually no influence on Mars.

But "without the greenhouse effect there would be very little, if any, life on Earth, since our planet would pretty much be a big ball of ice," said Evan, of the University of Wisconsin.

Most scientists now fear that the massive amount of carbon dioxide humans are pumping into the air will lead to a catastrophic rise in Earth's temperatures, dramatically raising sea levels as glaciers melt and leading to extreme weather worldwide.

Abdussamatov remains contrarian, however, suggesting that the sun holds something quite different in store.

"The solar irradiance began to drop in the 1990s, and a minimum will be reached by approximately 2040," Abdussamatov said. "It will cause a steep cooling of the climate on Earth in 15 to 20 years."

=====

Remember, Russia/former Soviet Union has almost no money for research and scientific testing, to put it in practical terms.

From Russian scientists march on Moscow, dated 2002:

"Russia's budgetary spending on science is now less than a budget of a single major Western university.

Russian science, once the envy of the world, is now a shadow of its former self, scientists here say.

They used to compete as equals with the United States; now they leave Russia in droves for a better life in the West.

At least half-a-million scientists have left Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The reason for this massive brain drain is simple: a Russian scientist is paid a $100 a month for a job that is worth thousands of dollars in the West."

=====

Anyway, this is wandering far afield from the original question about whether global warming will affect maturity dates. As others have said, days to maturity are a characteristic of a plant, and that doesn't change because everything gets warmer.

lilacs, sorry to disagree but YOU'RE WRONG. Humans aren't to blame. There is no evidence to support that statement. There is global warming but it's just a cycle. The earth goes through them. I remember not too long ago that we were worried that we were going to be in an iceage by now. We were trying to find ways to heat up the planet. You've been watching way too much TV. Hey, what did cause the last iceage? Was it the lack of SUVs? What is causing the increased proton emission from the sun? Guess that would be SUVs too. Hmmmm SUVs attract protons. And I guess the fact that Mars is heating up has nothing to do with sun activity, it's the SUV that you take with you when you go there to drive....

I agree that we should do everything we can to find cleaner and more econimical sources of fuel but I'm driving my SUV and smiling... A very large truck ran into the back end of my SUV going 50 mpg when I was stopped. My SUV (13 mpg) saved the life of my 4 month old daughter. If I would have been driving a yugo we would have been worm food.

ok...here's some real data.

Based on terrestrial data (not real accurate) we're up by about 0.6 degrees in over 100 years...

Based on some NASA data we're about even maybe getting a little colder in the last 30 or so..

And finally, some US averages. Not real scary.

NOT getting rid of my SUV...

John L. Daly wasn't a scientist...

There are two ways of indicating when a crop will mature - days to maturity and "growing degree days." For some time, seed-corn suppliers have included growing degree day ratings on their seed descriptions. I understand that this more accurate measurement is also used with cotton and alfalfa. Soon it will be available for many other crops. Growing degree days are just a way of measuring time in association with temperature.

The research folks have long been timing the emergence and development of insect pests by degree days. Farmers can use the information to time the application of pesticides so as to control an insect with greater efficacy. For example, they can pick the time to kill the bug just after it emerges but before it actually eats anything. An insect's development, like a plant's development, is largely controlled by degrees of temperature and time - degree days.

All other things being equal (& there are other influences), if the growing season is generally warmer - there will be higher degree days and crops will mature earlier. It's not very difficult nor is it at all cosmic and you dont even need to use the term global warming when you are talking about it.

Steve

I do not watch TV, I do not own an SUV, or a gas-guzzling lawn mower, and I'm a trained chemist with considerable background in physics, biology, cartography, geology, IT, and mathematics. I may or may not know gardening, but I do know science.

You're WRONG. The evidence that climate change is human-induced is overwhelming. Go to Amazon.com or to the library and look up the keywords "global warming," "climate change," "greenhouse gases." Start reading. There is universal consensus among the top scientists in the field of the existence of human-caused climate change. This is not some vague future scenario. It's happening now.

Where did you get your information? You don't say. Is it from a peer-reviewed scientific journal?

You can be as gloatingingly proud of your SUV as you want. Your thinking you're right doesn't matter. What matters is acknowledging the problem and doing something about it. Now. While it's still possible to reign global warming in somewhat. And gardeners are in an excellent position to actually do something about the problem. I made up my mind when I became a gardener to not use gas-powered equipment, for example. I also use compact flourescents, wash my clothes in cold water, recycle, and compost. These are all little things, but they add up.

To the original poster: sorry your thread's being hijacked.

All we have to do is vote for Al Gore. Problem solved in just 4 years.

We are in general agreement that maturity date of veggies. will not change.Okra and Bitter melon plants are good examples.Though being hot weather plants they grow at most of places in the world where range of temperatures are different in the growing period.This is in line with the assumption that genetic code the plant seed received has not changed from the time it was poroduced by the nature and it will not change.
Now what about quantity of Hormon productions? Will they change in step with Global temperature variations.They do have Genetic codes of their own.Are they independent of Global temp. changes too?

Obviously the dates to maturity will not change significantly.

As for the growing season being extended that remains to be seen, as far as I can see the USDA has not changed its zones, that is only something done be the Arbor day Foundation and we don't know exactly how they got those numbers. Regardless, planting dates are based on earliest and/or latest frost dates, and while that may be effected by zone changes, it isn't the same thing.

As for the so called consensus on humans causing global warming, less than 1,000 scientist have signed on to that theory. A group of over 17,000 scientists have signed on to saying that that THEORY of global warming being caused by humans is Junk science. The IPCC which is the United Nations group that proposed that THEORY, used only the data that supported that conclusion, and jury rigged the rest of the data to fit.

Also---As far as consensus in science---- no such thing. It either is or it ain't. Consensus is not a fact!

I'd advise on reduction in use of gas-powered devices (SUVs and such) just to cut funding to countries that are and have been unstable bases for violence and terrorism for years.

If we don't buy their oil, they don't have the money to launch world-wide terrorist attacks.

I wish the money was being spent on promoting the technology for solar and hydrogen energies instead of sending our young people to war.

As for the global warming/cooling debate, I haven't seen compelling evidence to prove what's at fault. I think there are compelling reasons for all humans to leave less of a damaging foot print on our only home. Its why I recycle, its why I garden organically, its why I reduce car trips. I'm not planning on living in a cave in the cold and dark and or building a bomb shelter panic room stocked for 100 years of living. I'm just trying a little harder to be good, for the sake of conservation in general. Yeah, if I see trash I pick it up. I don't go looking for who did it, I just take the initiative to do better in my little circle of the world.

Maybe the best way of dealing with the impact of global warming on farming and gardening is this:

Find out what plants, diseases, pests etc. are common in the zone just higher than your own and start doing what they do. For example, if you are a zone 6 gardener and things seem to be "changing", maybe you could start using the planting dates of zone 7. Maybe zone 7 is dryer, so start watering as if you were a zone 7 gardener. Maybe a zone 7 critter is starting to invade your garden, find out what those people in zone 7 have been doing for years to combat it.

Getting a warmer climate is not the end of the world. There are always people out there who have been dealing with your "new and unusual" conditions for years.

LOL... I just saw something on TV that said the pollution from China was causing cooling temps over the Pacific. It had something to do with Sulfur blocking the suns radiation from hitting the ground. I also remember back in the late 70's when we were told that Humans were causing a new Ice Age (Global cooling) because we were pumping to much CO2 into the air, blocking the Sun's radiation.

So what is it?? Did we cause Global Cooling with pollution in the late 70's to have that same CO2 come back to cause Global Warming?

Personally, I say it's the Sun's activity and some of us are a little to worried about issues we really can't affect.

If you want Global Temps to cool a bit, just figure out how to make a Volcano blow it's top now and then. Believe me, that'll cause Global temps to drop.

Every time there is a weather phenomenon, people cry global warming. There have been extream weather penomenon all throughout history. There have been high temperature times, and lows. Even if you look at the 2000 year time frame above, you can see that the temperature records with thermometers is higher than the "guestimations" from before that....go figure.

If you want to cry global warming then fine. Let's go back thousands of years and north america was covered by an ice glacier. What polution caused the earth to warm and it to melt back then? Penguin poop?

The fact is people that global warming won't kill us. Wars, polution, and desesis will kill us. That's why we need to stop poluting and using energy from non-renewable resources. Not because of global warming. Because it's the right thing to do.

There's also no reason they can't make an SUV that runs just as well on an alternative fuel. They don't want to is why they don't. The oil companies don't want to be out of business or loose their monopoly. That's a discussion for another site though.

The media frenzy surrounding global warming is way to over-hyped. If something doesn't follow a "normal" weather pattern they cry global warming.

Weather has no "normal" and follows no "average" no matter how much data you put behind it.

Thanks to violet and macheske for posting graphical presentation of Global temperature changes.Graphs clearly indicate an upward trend of Global temperature.Upward trend broke out in early 1880s and continued till it peaked out in 1940.It reversed the trend for few years till middle of 1965 and broke out into higher upward trend crossing zero line till today. This concludes that Global warming is for real.It also coinsides with Industrial and Technological revolutions.It also coinsides with historical break out of World population where world population increased from 2 billions to more than 5 billion today and still increasing.
Ind. and Tech. revolution changed our life style to the highest standard than world had experienced ever before.We blame the changes required to maintain the modern life style to partly for Global warming.
It is worth noting from heavy peak of Lower Troposphere Temperature of late 1990s (from graph presented by macheske) about the events that followed and occured till to day(Earthquakes, Tsunamis,Forest fires, Terrorism and what not).

>"Graphs clearly indicate an upward trend of Global temperature.Upward trend broke out in early 1880s and continued till it peaked out in 1940"

The only problem you have there is that those charts are inaccurate, and have been removed from the report.

When I was a very young child, I announced that I only believed what I could see. I've gotten wiser since then but I do remember being hauled out in my pajamas one winter morning in the 1930's to look at the thermometer. My dad wanted us to remember the event and it was a humdinger - the mercury in the thermometer had totally vanished - we learned later that the temperature had hit -38!
Back in those days we were in zone 4. And that was still true some 30 years ago when I started my garden here. Temperatures below -30 were not that uncommon. Haven't seen anything like that recently. -25 is a cold winter (last winter it was -18) and we've moved up to zone 5 and a bit warmer.
I used to plant tomatoes the 5th of June - for the last ten years they've been going in the 25th of May and doing fine.
My dad always expected the first frost any time after Labor Day - now I can usually count on outdoor tomatoes lasting through the middle of October.
I've also noted an increase in hurricane frequency here in upstate NY - used to be they were rare. My own lifetime has shown such drastic weather changes that it's hard to believe this is a natural cycle.

oldroser,

Your lifetime may seem like a long time to you but when compared to the age of the universe, it's not even a blip.

At one time, this planet we call earth was a large ball of ice; at another time, it was so hot, there were tropical plants growing at both poles.

If in another 100 years Upstate NY goes to Zone 3, what will be the cause?? Was it humans not causing enough pollution or something else?

I'm with All organic Justin if the goal is to pollute less. Do it because it's the right thing to do, and don't use climate change as a reason or excuse.

Will the hot weather due to global warming have any effect on production of plant Hormons and Phytochromes?
My water melons ,Honeydew and Cantaloupes ripend little earlier this year.Will the higher heat than normal change the timing and amount (by volume) of Hormons produced by the plants?

lilacs_of_may,

you are going to be $100,000 richer!

being a scientist you, unlike al gore, have access to scientific journals, colleauges, all sorts of scientific proof that global warming is man made.

all you need to do to get the $100,000 is go to the link i have provided and submit scientific proof that global warming is man made. bingo, it's so easy even a chemist can do it. :) i won't even ask for a cut of your winnings, nice guy that i am. :)

buy a nice car, a fast car!

tom

tjg911:
My posting is about global warming and it's effects.I do not intend to prove that Global warming is man made or not.But there is enough evidence that Global warming is there.
There are some postings on this web site about little abnormal growth pattern of some veggies. in particular about zucchini and some squash.My neighbour gardener has the same observation.For me these kind of discussions are for understanding something we did not experience before.
I have posted a question not the conclusion.
Thanks for posting web site.

chaman.

i agree the earth is getting warmer, that seems true. the issue is whether it is the cause of humans, which i don't believe to be the cause, or natural causes, the sun seems to be the cause but it may take decades to measure this. i am always impressed by the absolute knowledge that some have that it's caused by humans as some in this thread admantly proclaim.

i have not noticed any changes in the many vegetables i grow with the exception of tomatoes. i think that the extra early tomatoes last year and especially this year (dtm that are normally 70-85 days producing in the 42 to 55 day range) are because i have very healthy large plants by memorial day. most have flowers. my soil is very rich and healthly, i've been working on it since 1998 and it is really good but especially since i've been getting manure in the fall for the past 2 years. dtm have been 2-3 weeks earlier than when i grew seedlings in window sills vs under shop lights now. this year i was eating good ripe tomatoes by the 2nd week in july. normally this occurred by early august, rarely on 7/30.

tom