Anedoctal evidence from this forum and the Fruit forum points to increased sweet potato production in Northern regions, and appearance of Zone 7 trees such as Asian persimmon and Goldrush apple in the last several years.

I can personally attest to the rapidly improving quality of melons/watermelons in MI, as well as the rapidly increasing number of hoop houses and tunnels, producing vegetables all months of the year. These typically give you 1.0 zones, but you still have to have Zone 7 winters to grow through the winter. This may have not been possible as late as 2003, when everything I had in hoop houses died.

Yes, I neglected to mention sweet potato. Probably there are areas where they are somewhat unheard of as a local crop yet can be produced now without special aids such as black plastic.

When I think about reliable productive staple crops, I am most interested in those that do not require artificial protection or aids. Certainly hoop house or glasshouses will be always necessary for such things as starting tomatoes and so forth, but if a local region was faced with a dire need to scale up food production rapidly and reliably, black plastic, irrigation, and hoop houses are not going to be available. Existing municipal equipment to prepare fallow land and locally available fertilizers would be the immediate option.

In such a scenario, not being confined only to those crops that were traditional to a region 20, 50, or 100 years ago could be very important.

I think you're going overboard here. Any climate change over the last decades could only shift conditions within the value of half a zone. That could have no effect on allowing crops that previously only grew in the American South to grow in New England. If you can grow Southern crops in New England, now, then you could have thirty years ago as well.

World average temperatures have been increasing steadily since the end of the Little Ice Age - that's about 1850. Yet New Englanders relied far more on local market gardens for veggies in the early 19th century - in the Little Ice Age - than they do now. The shift in growing conditions has been more like moving from Boston to Providence than from Boston to Vidalia.

I think it is more like Boston to New York.

One factor that must be considered is the urban heat island effect. Cities generate a lot of heat as well as being barriers to surface air movement. An urban/suburban garden will be more conducive to zone marginal crops than a rural area. A return to 1870's with no electricity/ fuel oil, gasoline or Diesel would be quite a shock. At least they had wood or coal fired stoves and kerosene for lamps but it was use sparingly and did not release vast numbers of BTu's into the surface air as is the case today..

Jon, I think it's more complicated than that. For one thing, the suite we might call "southern crops" is not monolithic in the ability to adapt to small change of the types and cultivars within it.

Also, I think you are correct, 30 years ago here one could have produced a good crop of cowpeas, maybe of certain short-season cultivars and probably not every year. Now the change is such that even long-season cultivars produce well, and (we'll see) I suspect pretty consistently every year.

So it's a situation where the prime zone of production for a given crop type is expanding for some, and probably retreating for others. It's worth paying attention to.

with jon,

here we need to be careful of getting emotional over something that those who promote it can't prove or show any hard evidence of, yes they can work out mathematically calculated models and on a continuing basis prove their model, but that is it they are using their parameters which they change often so they can fit their story into it.

of course the climate of the world has changed over around the past 6k years, that is the natural design of the planet. yes men are making local conditions deteriorate due mainly to decimation of forest habitat, and land degradation through forestry and agriculture, the run off of which silts creek and rivers and destroys coral and rock reef habitats, then we go and trawl the oceans for food at all levels.

when the vikings discovered iceland it was lots warmer than it has been they could graze food animals and grow lettuce and other things then it cycled into a cold period now back to a warm period, that is natural climate change at work.

we cycle through warm winters here but our drought cycle has expanded now all due to those factors above starting with forest habitat destruction.

why should us little people carry the cost burden for the greed of companies and gov', over here why the burden of a carbon tax industry, for co2 that is heavier than air? and it will deliver nothing but hardship to those who can little afford it.

the people didn't cause this furphy. so why make things worse trying to fix something that can't be fixed, unless we plant trees instead of solar farms and windmills.

take care

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

We're warming. That battle is over. The "battle" has shifted to who/what is to blame rather than denying it's happening.

We're also developing more flexible cultivars/varieties of plants that can handle a wider range of weather/soils.

There's a combo effect going on there...

The only battle ever was trying to blame some one for it.

Only morons say the climate has or does not change.
Only opinionated fools try to play God and say exactly what has or will happen in absolutes.

As to whether the warming will continue is still up to debate especially by scientists who admit, openly, that sun activity is the major driving force and currents studies indicate that recent sun activity may, or may not, be they type that causes cooling.

There's experiments going on right now (with USDA funding) developing a broccoli that can be harvested during the warmer times of the year in East coast Appalachian Mountain areas in order to feed the East coast's need/love for the stuff without shipping it from the West coat.

They've developed some interesting leads...it's getting close.

On the flip side, there's a lot of work (especially via Clemson University and North Carolina State University) creating blackberries/raspberries that can handle warmer climates.

This is all "traditional breeding" (aka, not GMO) work, btw.

Those of you who want to debate whether or not there is climate change please go to the HT forum. I want to keep this thread on track apropos of using crops outside their traditional ranges.

That's interesting, NC. My wife could be a broccoli market on her own. I don't try to grow it any more thanks to the ICM.

Here's a few 1-page "information posters" pdf's on what's going on with the East Coast broc thing...

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/broccoli/Reports/ASHSPoster2012overview.pdf - Project Overview

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/broccoli/Reports/ASHSPoster2012RegTrial.pdf - Regional trial results

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/bjorkman/lab/broccoli/Reports/ASHSPoster2012supply_chain.pdf - Supply chain for reduced food miles

Recently I read Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots Along the Pepper Trail by Kurt Michael Friese, Kraig Kraft, Gary Paul Nabhan. It looks at climate's effect on agriculture and how it may be influencing the growth of chili pepper varieties with strong ties to local areas. It was a fun and informative read...and not what I expected when I picked it out at the library.

Personally, I have found both sweet and chili peppers easier to growth in recent years in SW/Central Michigan. It may not all be climate though....I have gained in experience and knowledge, also.

Late tomatoes have also done well, while I used to feel it wasn't worth bothering with anything other than early or midseason varieties.

I grew some mung beans this summer, they did ok, got a couple servings out of perhaps 100 sq ft. of very poor soil.

Doubtless there is a large number of currently un-utilized crop families from around the world, especially those common in the subtropics and high tropics that could be useful in many parts of the US and Canada.

I'm wondering whether some of what you are talking about is just a breakdown of regionalism. Which is to say that some crops are considered "southern" as a habit of social mores, and not climate. For example, there is no reason why cowpeas would not have done well in much of New England, they have the same growing requirements as bush and pole beans. But "tradition" has it that only people from the south eat them. Same with collards versus broccoli. No reason why collards should be consigned to the south since they grow in the same conditions as broccoli. And tobacco, most infamous of southern crops, has been grown in the Connecticut River Valley for at least a century.

Which isn't to say that the climate isn't changing. But I think the sudden upswing in crops once considered only southern has as much to do with the increased communication between areas and a greater openness to new foods for at least some of those veggies mentioned. I mean, if staid New Englanders can eat sushi and spicy Thai food, how scary can a mess of greens or crowder peas with a bit of salt pork be? But go back to the time of my childhood and try to get most people to eat any of those things... Wasn't going to happen.

So I guess I think multiple forces are at work here.

I think that is a totally valid point, Sunni.

I would suggest that both dynamics are happening simultaneously. Traditional crop choices are changing due to increased mobility of populations and cultural exchange. Climate warming is allowing small changes in the physical limits of dependable production for various crops. This latter is certainly hard to unambiguously measure, but logic demands that it is happening.

A gentleman over at the homegrown goodness site, breeds to adapt vegetables to his climate to create land-race types.

There are boundaries beyond which one cannot go with any regularity but many vegetables, to a lessor degree fruit, have wider boundaries that are only found when one tries to find them.

One can place the blame or credit on what ever one wants but now many are going where some think no gardener has gone before only to find out that Kilroy has already been there if one reads what was written in the past.

When you can grow a peach orchard in mid-Minnesota, the climate has changed for sure.

If you get one tree to produce for eight years before going belly-up, you had a tough tree but long term climate change had nothing to do with it.

I'm not claiming to be the first at anything.

Very interesting discussion. You're making me want to try a fig bush in zone 5.

pnbrown, IMO zone 6-2 will see more of a increase in types of vegetables then zone 8.
I hope to grow plants that are for zone 9 in zone 8, year around.
But I am not sure if that will happen soon
I know you have a Southern garden,too.
So maybe you can speak to this, also.

Here in MN we are getting some goofy weather patterns but IMO the growing season has not changed. Watch the solar cycles - live and die by them. We are in the solar max period now so I am not surprised in the least by the extremes of heat and drought we are getting.

I grow southern cowpeas up here. Doesn't mean nobody ever could grow them here in the past. They just were not part of the diet of the immigrants to this area so nobody knew of them.

Does global warming exist? Absolutely - at least since the last ice age. Anthropogenic global warming? Prove it - and I do not mean prove it with some scientific study puked out by someone with ulterior motives such as agenda, career, salary, ideology, politics, etc. And if you prove it, what does it mean? Gonna change anything in what's left of your lifetime?

Certainly a most interesting topic for discussion, though. :)

Peace.

AGW isn't controversial at all to most scientists that have studied it...and we're not talking 51% or anything close to it.

The extent of AGW vs Earth-made inputs may be controversial...but the vast minority (extreme minority) that deny it are an extremely small group of people.

But hey...there's people out there that think vaccines are more dangerous than polio.

Btw, when I say "people" in the post above, I mean people who have studied, and continue to study, atmospheric/Earth science.

I am definitely not talking about the general population as they are swayed by political belief.

Long story short...the data is there. Carbon (CO2) effects on the environment (from soil to air) is real/known...and there's not much debate at all about it's effect.

It's not controversial at all.

I tried to grow a row mung beans this year. I had expected to be able to irrigate a new garden area, but it did not work out. Only one of the plants in a 5 foot row grew, it set 4 or 5 pods. Three types of soybeans did a bit worse, most bush beans did far better - dry pinto types the best. There might have been a half inch of rain this summer. Which strangely is not all that unusual although the "average" would be closer to 3.

The problem with my climate (southwestern Oregon)in growing crops more suited to the south (other than irrigation, which is expensive) is the temperature swing between day and night. It is usually around 30 degrees F and can be up to 40. I have read quite a bit that this can cause some problems with blossom set in a number of crops.

The reason that crops are not grown in certain areas may have much more to do with cultural, best use, and logistical problems than what is possible to grow in an area. Pushing the limits on what is possible to grow and farming for income probably don't mesh that often. I found many suggestions about what to grow for dent corn from publications from the 1930s. It seems that they faced similar conditions to today, actually found crops that were up to the task, but these crops were eventually made obsolete due to the value of alternate crops and production in other areas.

Forget 1930 something, was "summer" 2009 that long ago? "Averages" seem to have a strange way of somehow "averaging out". I would definitely not overly push the limits on long-lived perennials without a way of protecting them from what WILL (I would underline that a few times if I could, just don't get attached) happen to them in the future. For annual crops why not?

Best of luck!

"Those of you who want to debate whether or not there is climate change please go to the HT forum."

Ditto.

"One factor that must be considered is the urban heat island effect. Cities generate a lot of heat as well as being barriers to surface air movement. An urban/suburban garden will be more conducive to zone marginal crops than a rural area."

I agree, and it is certainly a factor in some of the local changes to climate. The city where I grew up had a population of 35,000 when I was a child, with tracts of open space even in the city. Those are all developed now, as well as much of the agricultural land which once existed just outside City Limits... and population is now over 60,000, not including the suburbs.

My gardens are located both on my suburban property, and on a rural property 6 miles away. Six miles difference isn't much, but it has about the same effect on my home garden as moving it 200 miles South. The first frosts (which severely damage my rural garden) seldom cause much damage near my home, where I generally get an extra 2 weeks or so of productive growing season. That is only localized warming, though. I would agree with Soilent, the length of the growing season in rural areas has not changed significantly since my childhood. The developed areas - and their associated micro-climates - have just gotten larger. For good or ill, that is where most of us live.

"I'm wondering whether some of what you are talking about is just a breakdown of regionalism. Which is to say that some crops are considered "southern" as a habit of social mores, and not climate."

I too believe that could be at least part of the regional changes to gardening. The wealth of seeds available to gardeners now, as compared to the past, could also be a factor. Had I wanted to grow cowpeas in my youth, I would have had to plant black eyed peas from the supermarket; there were no local sources for other varieties, and very little information in my region that those varieties even existed. Now I could go through SSE, order seed online from Baker Creek, or swap with members of garden forums, and find dozens.

The point being that we have much more information & seed at our fingertips, on a national (and dare I say international?) level, than was available even 30 years ago. We've gotten smarter. This has presented more opportunities for gardeners to experiment with crops that are non-traditional for their area. For example, I grow & collect yardlong beans, and love Egyptian spinach, Moringa, & water spinach as summer greens. Could I have grown them successfully in the climate of the 60's? Maybe I could have... but there is no way to make a proper comparison. There were few sources back then, and little available information on their proper culture.

But I think the topic of modifying gardens to suit climate change misses the point. If a garden is diversified, something will always do well, regardless of the weather. This summer was a hot one, and I banked on that & planted more hot weather crops than usual. That turned out to be a good decision, and it has been a great year; but it was only 3 years ago - during the sun's abnormally quiet minimum - that we had a record cool summer in my area. Hot weather crops did poorly that year, but peas & runner beans did wonderfully.

If there is one thing we can count on as gardeners, it is that something always does well, and something always fails. The object is to reduce the chance of failure as much as possible. I stretch my envelope to a great degree, and often plant varieties that are not entirely suited to my climate... and heartily recommend the practice. It is part of what makes gardening fun. However, I never put all my eggs in that shaky basket. It is best to do a mix of challenging crops, backed up by varieties that have proven themselves over time to be locally successful.

Zeedman, as usual, well put.

I admit, again, to having mixed up two different concepts in this thread. Hence the confusion. Let's forget about any possible climate change and focus on the topic of making use of non-traditional well-adapted crops.

It is very true, we have gotten smarter in the past 30 years in this regard. Massively improved communication has really made all the difference, this forum and many others like it being an example.

I would like to put another 2 cents in on the topic of not cheapening the work being put into varieties to grow in warmer climates. It's a huge area of research/work for decades (heck, practically a century).

People can grow crops almost anywhere...but what yields? There were raspberry canes in Georgia decades ago, but yields are much higher now thanks to breeding work...and it's only going to get better. There may (will) be commercial production in areas where it was once not even economically viable.

On the flipside...there's work on tree fruit crops that require so few "chilling hours" that people can grow peach crops in mid/southern Arizona or Florida...the "Desert Gold" and the "Florida Prince." Areas that have no business growing these kind of crops now have commercial industries in place. What once took 600-1000+ chilling hours can be produced in climates that get 200-300 hours of chilling.