BC researchers investigate cranberry production in a changing climate
Rich in color, Vitamin C, and antioxidants, cranberries enhance cakes, muffins, salads, juices, and cocktails. And, for many Americans, Thanksgiving would not be the same without the crimson, tart berries that have long been a presence on their holiday tables.
But how will cranberry harvests fare when faced with increasingly extreme weather?
One of only three commonly cultivated fruits native to North America, and the Bay State’s No. 1 commercial crop, cranberries face an uncertain future as the impact of global climate change alters the growing conditions that have allowed them to thrive in the Northeast for generations.
A recently published study in PLOS Climate—a publication of the Public Library of Science—by Boston College Earth and Environmental Science Professor of the Practice Tara L. Pisani Gareau, and Brian J. Gareau, a professor in the Sociology department and the International Studies Program, found that Massachusetts cranberry farmers—despite expressing less alarm about global warming than average Americans—are nonetheless modifying their practices to adapt to changing environmental conditions, allowing their viny plants to endure—for now.
“Cranberry growers are adopting new ways to sand their bog, installing more efficient automatic irrigation systems, and renovating them with higher yield varieties,” said Pisani Gareau, who also serves as the director of BC’s Environmental Studies Program. “They also have available more accurate weather forecasts, allow them to respond to seasonal extremes, but it’s unknown how long technology can stave off the forces of a changing climate.”
Researchers Brian Gareau, Tara Pisani Gareau (seated), and Lijing Gao. (Lee Pellegrini)
The investigation was supported by a grant from BC’s Research Across Departments and Schools program, administered through the office of the Vice Provost for Research. Lijing Gao, a postdoctoral research fellow, now an assistant professor at the University of Missouri, was the paper’s second author.
According to a 2009 Global Climate Change Impact in the U.S. Report, large portions of the Northeast are likely to become unsuitable for growing popular varieties of apples, blueberries, and cranberries if higher emissions of heat-trapping gases ensue. Cranberries, which require a timespan during the winter when the ambient temperature falls below 45 °F for normal blossoming, are particularly susceptible to a warming planet.
A previously published study by the authors in 2018, found, however, that most the region’s cranberry growers did not consider global warming a serious threat to production, despite their inability to shift to a crop that is more adapted to a warmer climate, a practice more accessible to farmers planting annual crops.
“One might expect that cranberry growers would be even more concerned about global warming since their livelihoods depend on maintaining this unique production system that is geographically bound,” said Pisani Gareau, noting that 2022 Massachusetts cranberry sales exceeded $82 million. “We discovered that growers are experiencing the impacts of a warmer, wetter, and more extreme Northeast climate, even to point of yield loss, but they remain optimistic about the future of cranberry production in Massachusetts due to the plant’s resilience, their ongoing adaptation strategies, and knowledge gleaned from a trusted source, the UMass Cranberry Station.”
A branch of the UMass Cooperative Extension, the Cranberry Station is an East Wareham-based research and outreach center charged with the mission of maintaining and enhancing the economic viability of the state’s cranberry Industry. It informs growers about best practices, emergent technologies, and, in collaboration with the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association, timely weather predictions. However, the UMass Cranberry Station has been relatively quiet about climate change in its published outreach, according to the study.
“We discovered that growers are experiencing the impacts of a warmer, wetter, and more extreme Northeast climate, even to point of yield loss, but they remain optimistic about the future of cranberry production in Massachusetts due to the plant’s resilience, their ongoing adaptation strategies, and knowledge gleaned from a trusted source, the UMass Cranberry Station.”
“The communication of climate change science is a highly politicized issue, and can lead to polarized responses,” said Brian Gareau, who also serves as the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences senior associate dean for Faculty Affairs & Academic Planning. “While scientists widely agree on the reality of human-induced climate change, this consensus is not mirrored in public opinion, especially in agricultural social circles. For growers, the extension’s focus on immediate weather events—instead of the broader context of climate change—reflects their more pressing needs and priorities, rather than the longer-term, abstract problems of climate change.”
According to the researchers, the roughly 400 New England cranberry growers operate in a coupled social and ecological production system comprised by both social components, such as fellow growers, extension agents, conservation organizations, etc., and natural elements such as bogs, upland habitat, weather, and water resources. This “socio-ecological network” supports truth claims about the agriculture world, creating trustworthiness among the participants.
“Evidence suggests that growers can adopt adaptive and mitigating actions without engaging specific causation assumptions related to climate change,” said Gareau. “Growers may unconsciously adapt to climate change in their daily practices by observing shifts in weather patterns, responding to agricultural stressors, seeking to improve productivity and resilience, implementing risk management strategies, or relying on traditional knowledge. Growers’ decisions to adapt are dependent on their unique experiences and observations, as well as their interpretations of changing weather and climate conditions.
“The urgency for sustainable practices has prompted some growers to adopt various adaptation strategies; however, whether cranberry growers will employ tools such as climate forecasting to reduce production risk and mange water resources remains unknown.”
Given that climate change is shifting all the conditions in which the cranberries thrive, making them exceedingly harder to grow, it plants a question mark next to the iconic crop’s future.
“The farthest south you can grow cranberries seems to be New Jersey,” said Brian Wick, executive director of the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association in a 2020 National Geographic newsletter. “But by 2100, Massachusetts will have the weather of New Jersey, or somewhere father south, and then what will we do?”
PLOS Climate is a publication of the Public Library of Science, a nonprofit, open access publisher of research in science and medicine. PLOS Climate furthers the understanding of climatic patterns, processes, impacts and solutions by issuing transparent, rigorous and freely available research from diverse perspectives, providing a site for all areas of climate investigations, with an emphasis on collaborative, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work that improves global and regional understanding of climate phenomena, and informs critical strategies for combating climate change.