4 ms·

I live around Portland, OR. I took my family berry-picking a couple of weeks back and it was a very sad sight. Almost all the raspberries, blackberries, boysenb

I live around Portland, OR. I took my family berry-picking a couple of weeks back and it was a very sad sight. Almost all the raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, and marionberries were gone. The blue-berries were the only things to survive pretty much, but they had very little flavor. In my backyard on the first day we hit 107-108, I lost all my pea plants and my green beans took a major beating. My corn and zucchini plants were wilting like crazy, I thought they were a goner. The second day I said forget this and just let the garden sprinkler run all afternoon; high water-bill be damned. That did the trick, I managed to save my tomatoes, corn, a good chunk of the green beans, and the zucchini. The south-facing side of my Japanese maple is still scorched. What a crazy event. The worst part of it is all the people that lost their lives.

yaitsyaboi 5y ago
This is pretty chilling to consider. Also notable that many right wingers in colder climates think (or at least claim to believe) that climate change might be a net positive for them. https://twitter.com/xongkuro/status/1412778979342356482?s=21 https://twitter.com/xongkuro/status/1412778979342356482?s=21
- seattle_spring 5y ago
  "I say let the world warm up, see what Boutros Boutros-Ghali-Ghali thinks about that! We'll grow oranges in Alaska."
  - drewzero1 5y ago
    Dammit Dale! I was thinking of this, but couldn't remember where it was from.
- Alkhwarizmi 5y ago
  Utterly baffling how so many people openly exhibit sociopathic tendencies so easily!! No shared pain for those negatively impacted whatsoever
- asmos7 5y ago
  One of the predicted winners of climate change is Russia. It's supposed to thaw fertile lands that are currently under permafrost and open up new shipping lanes. Obviously even Russia will experience some downsides but the positives could easily outweigh the bad.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Everything has tradeoffs. Various studies of the economic impact of climate change suggested some warming would be a net positive for northern countries but sufficient warming would be universally bad for every country. We have already reached that point, the issue for the north isn’t just an increase in average temperatures it’s an increase in variability. Canada wasn’t prepared for 120f temperatures and spending money to prepare for such rare events is hard to justify. On the other hand failing to prepare has real consequences. Plus, retreating permafrost is a serious issue for infrastructure built on top of it. Combined with new pests and everything put together it’s a complex issue to analyze.
  - _huayra_ 5y ago
    Farming on permafrost sounds like the makings for patient 0 of some previously-frozen virus coming along and causing the next global pandemic :(
    - rubyn00bie 5y ago
      YES! I’m more scared of what’s in the permafrost we’re about to unleash than any other part of global warming... though most of that fear, for me, is from all that trapped methane’s effect on the atmosphere and climate. The awful contagions, viruses, bacteria, and death buried/hidden/locked away are seeming more and more like an apocalyptic “fatality” (think Mortal Kombat) move at this point...
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    I wonder how the released methane will change the color of the northern lights...
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
zwieback 5y ago
You know it's bad when the blackberries in the Willamette Valley die! It's nearly impossible to kill those bastards, if I don't rip them out multiple times a year the only thing I have in my yard are blackberries. I might have to get a goat herd.
- y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
  I have that same problem (who doesn't eh?) and unfortunately the ones in my yard are doing great. They don't get the full day's sun like that berry farm did though. I pull them out from the roots and every year they come back. It's right along the fence line too, which makes it very difficult to maneuver for pulling them out. I have snooty neighbors that get uppity about dandelions growing in my yard. I love blackberries and sometimes I just want to let them grow, but my neighbors would have a heart attack and sue me for it given the chance hah.
  - swader999 5y ago
    So jealous of you guys south, Up here in Alberta I would love to have some blackberries. We pay about $4-5 CAD for a handful of them in stores.
dehrmann 5y ago
> boysenberries Boysenberries should be able to tolerate 100 degrees, too. Portland is way north for them.
- dawnerd 5y ago
  100 sure, 114+? no. Quick edit: the days are also quite a bit longer so while further south they might hit 100 and be fine, up here it was 100 for many hours nonstop. That's whats withering the plants. Heck, it's not even that unusual for Portland to toy with 100d in the summer, it's unusual to go that high for that long.
- y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
  I measured 116 degrees at my house. These boysenberries are out in a field with the sun battering on them all day long. At those temps, it must've been a big shock for the plants. Most of them had significant burn damage to the leaves.
- sizzle 5y ago
  What about marionberries?
downrightmike 5y ago
You should get a sun shade, 30% seems to keep things alive in arizona at 120
pengaru 5y ago
> The second day I said forget this and just let the garden sprinkler run all afternoon; high water-bill be damned. That did the trick I haven't seen any reporting on if the industrial scale farms actually employed evaporative cooling via sprinklers throughout the heat wave. It seems like a no-brainer when your crop is at risk and you're already presumably equipped with appropriately sized sprinklers and water supply... was it just too hot to be effective? Or did the total loss instances just stand around and watch their crops dry out and bake in the sun?
- kixiQu 5y ago
  It is not typical for farms to have equipment to keep sprinklers going on all parts of all fields of all crops simultaneously, as was pretty much necessary. People have equipment for normal conditions, and not a ton of idle capacity that it would have been a no-brainer to deploy.
- shawabawa3 5y ago
  I imagine most farmers don't have the equipment to sprinkle all their crops at the same time, normally they'd rotate what's being sprinkled. So they'd only be able to pick a small amount to save
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  The Pacific Northwest is known for its highly productive dryland farming, relying on natural rainfall patterns instead of irrigation or sprinklers, which also reduces costs. Consequently, there is a relative dearth of infrastructure for distributing piped water to the crops during a severe drought or heatwave.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  It wouldn't work with existing systems. For example, out here in the West, center pivot irrigation is the most common. In a quarter mile crop circle, the arm takes a full 24 hour day to make a full rotation. The bigger 1 mile circles typically take a few days. This is too slow to rescue most crops from a long stretch of 110 degree days. EDIT: Nope! I'm mistaken. I found a newsletter in my inbox from earlier this year saying that there are companies doing exactly what you propose: making high speed irrigation systems for cooling. Here's an example: https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/high-speed-pivots https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/h...
sizzle 5y ago
Doesn’t watering plants in direct sunlight burn them??
- y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
  I actually searched for that exact question before I turned on the sprinkler. Search for "does watering plants in sunlight burn them" and there's tons of results claiming it's not true. Sources ranged from The Guardian to StackExchange. I was desperate and those search results were good enough for me at the time, so never bothered to look for any kind of studies around the matter. If you can find evidence of watering in sunlight burning plants, I'd like to read it. EDIT: Here's an interesting experiment on it: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03150.x https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-... > At the start of this paper, we quoted the oft-stated advice that plants must not be watered in the midday sunshine in order to avoid tissue damage as a result of intense sunlight focused by water drops on leaves (Table S1). We have shown that this widely held belief is only correct for hairy leaves. Based on the computed light-collecting efficiency of water drops (Figs 4–7), we have also determined that the risk of sunburn of smooth, hairless leaves is theoretically the highest at a solar elevation of θ ≈ 23°, corresponding to early morning or late afternoon. In practice, however, the light intensity from such an oblique position of the sun is too weak to be a factor, as was confirmed by Expt 2.
stakkur 5y ago
I live around Portland too. Berry picking in Clackamas County has been just fine, especially blackberries and loganberries. Even with the (very) brief heatwave.

yaitsyaboi 5y ago

This is pretty chilling to consider. Also notable that many right wingers in colder climates think (or at least claim to believe) that climate change might be a net positive for them. https://twitter.com/xongkuro/status/1412778979342356482?s=21 https://twitter.com/xongkuro/status/1412778979342356482?s=21

seattle_spring 5y ago
"I say let the world warm up, see what Boutros Boutros-Ghali-Ghali thinks about that! We'll grow oranges in Alaska."
- drewzero1 5y ago
  Dammit Dale! I was thinking of this, but couldn't remember where it was from.
Alkhwarizmi 5y ago
Utterly baffling how so many people openly exhibit sociopathic tendencies so easily!! No shared pain for those negatively impacted whatsoever
asmos7 5y ago
One of the predicted winners of climate change is Russia. It's supposed to thaw fertile lands that are currently under permafrost and open up new shipping lanes. Obviously even Russia will experience some downsides but the positives could easily outweigh the bad.
- Retric 5y ago
  Everything has tradeoffs. Various studies of the economic impact of climate change suggested some warming would be a net positive for northern countries but sufficient warming would be universally bad for every country. We have already reached that point, the issue for the north isn’t just an increase in average temperatures it’s an increase in variability. Canada wasn’t prepared for 120f temperatures and spending money to prepare for such rare events is hard to justify. On the other hand failing to prepare has real consequences. Plus, retreating permafrost is a serious issue for infrastructure built on top of it. Combined with new pests and everything put together it’s a complex issue to analyze.
- _huayra_ 5y ago
  Farming on permafrost sounds like the makings for patient 0 of some previously-frozen virus coming along and causing the next global pandemic :(
  - rubyn00bie 5y ago
    YES! I’m more scared of what’s in the permafrost we’re about to unleash than any other part of global warming... though most of that fear, for me, is from all that trapped methane’s effect on the atmosphere and climate. The awful contagions, viruses, bacteria, and death buried/hidden/locked away are seeming more and more like an apocalyptic “fatality” (think Mortal Kombat) move at this point...
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  I wonder how the released methane will change the color of the northern lights...
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago

zwieback 5y ago

You know it's bad when the blackberries in the Willamette Valley die! It's nearly impossible to kill those bastards, if I don't rip them out multiple times a year the only thing I have in my yard are blackberries. I might have to get a goat herd.

y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
I have that same problem (who doesn't eh?) and unfortunately the ones in my yard are doing great. They don't get the full day's sun like that berry farm did though. I pull them out from the roots and every year they come back. It's right along the fence line too, which makes it very difficult to maneuver for pulling them out. I have snooty neighbors that get uppity about dandelions growing in my yard. I love blackberries and sometimes I just want to let them grow, but my neighbors would have a heart attack and sue me for it given the chance hah.
- swader999 5y ago
  So jealous of you guys south, Up here in Alberta I would love to have some blackberries. We pay about $4-5 CAD for a handful of them in stores.

dehrmann 5y ago

> boysenberries Boysenberries should be able to tolerate 100 degrees, too. Portland is way north for them.

dawnerd 5y ago
100 sure, 114+? no. Quick edit: the days are also quite a bit longer so while further south they might hit 100 and be fine, up here it was 100 for many hours nonstop. That's whats withering the plants. Heck, it's not even that unusual for Portland to toy with 100d in the summer, it's unusual to go that high for that long.
y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
I measured 116 degrees at my house. These boysenberries are out in a field with the sun battering on them all day long. At those temps, it must've been a big shock for the plants. Most of them had significant burn damage to the leaves.
sizzle 5y ago
What about marionberries?

downrightmike 5y ago

You should get a sun shade, 30% seems to keep things alive in arizona at 120

pengaru 5y ago

> The second day I said forget this and just let the garden sprinkler run all afternoon; high water-bill be damned. That did the trick I haven't seen any reporting on if the industrial scale farms actually employed evaporative cooling via sprinklers throughout the heat wave. It seems like a no-brainer when your crop is at risk and you're already presumably equipped with appropriately sized sprinklers and water supply... was it just too hot to be effective? Or did the total loss instances just stand around and watch their crops dry out and bake in the sun?

kixiQu 5y ago
It is not typical for farms to have equipment to keep sprinklers going on all parts of all fields of all crops simultaneously, as was pretty much necessary. People have equipment for normal conditions, and not a ton of idle capacity that it would have been a no-brainer to deploy.
shawabawa3 5y ago
I imagine most farmers don't have the equipment to sprinkle all their crops at the same time, normally they'd rotate what's being sprinkled. So they'd only be able to pick a small amount to save
jandrewrogers 5y ago
The Pacific Northwest is known for its highly productive dryland farming, relying on natural rainfall patterns instead of irrigation or sprinklers, which also reduces costs. Consequently, there is a relative dearth of infrastructure for distributing piped water to the crops during a severe drought or heatwave.
nate_meurer 5y ago
It wouldn't work with existing systems. For example, out here in the West, center pivot irrigation is the most common. In a quarter mile crop circle, the arm takes a full 24 hour day to make a full rotation. The bigger 1 mile circles typically take a few days. This is too slow to rescue most crops from a long stretch of 110 degree days. EDIT: Nope! I'm mistaken. I found a newsletter in my inbox from earlier this year saying that there are companies doing exactly what you propose: making high speed irrigation systems for cooling. Here's an example: https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/high-speed-pivots https://www.agriculture.com/machinery/irrigation-equipment/h...

sizzle 5y ago

Doesn’t watering plants in direct sunlight burn them??

y-c-o-m-b 5y ago
I actually searched for that exact question before I turned on the sprinkler. Search for "does watering plants in sunlight burn them" and there's tons of results claiming it's not true. Sources ranged from The Guardian to StackExchange. I was desperate and those search results were good enough for me at the time, so never bothered to look for any kind of studies around the matter. If you can find evidence of watering in sunlight burning plants, I'd like to read it. EDIT: Here's an interesting experiment on it: https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03150.x https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-... > At the start of this paper, we quoted the oft-stated advice that plants must not be watered in the midday sunshine in order to avoid tissue damage as a result of intense sunlight focused by water drops on leaves (Table S1). We have shown that this widely held belief is only correct for hairy leaves. Based on the computed light-collecting efficiency of water drops (Figs 4–7), we have also determined that the risk of sunburn of smooth, hairless leaves is theoretically the highest at a solar elevation of θ ≈ 23°, corresponding to early morning or late afternoon. In practice, however, the light intensity from such an oblique position of the sun is too weak to be a factor, as was confirmed by Expt 2.

stakkur 5y ago

I live around Portland too. Berry picking in Clackamas County has been just fine, especially blackberries and loganberries. Even with the (very) brief heatwave.