Impacts of Climate Change on Horticulture: Resources

Noxious weeds, including poison ivy and ragweed - the pollen of which is a leading cause of allergies in late summer – will be among the big winners as levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increase. Invasive crop pests and plant diseases are likely to increase too as a result of global warming.

Experts from across the country discussed this and other troubling news for orchards, farms and gardens at the October 4, 2003 Impacts of Climate Change on Horticulture symposium in Providence, RI.

The first-of-its-kind event was co-sponsored by Clean Air - Cool Planet, Cornell University and the American Society for Horticultural Sciences as part of their annual meeting. Over 200 horticultural leaders attended the day-long meeting, including professional horticulturalists, Extension educators, and university faculty. A group discussion at the end of the day focused on education outreach and the need for more resources to understand how warming already underway will affect water resources, growing seasons, and plant health.

• Conference Proceedings (PDF, 254 KB)
• Summary News Release (PDF, 16 KB)

Presentations & Notes

(PDF files in this section require Adobe Acrobat Reader)

• Gases and climate change: what we know now (PDF, 1525 KB)
  William Moomaw, Director of the Institute of the Environment, Tufts University
  
• Climate change and water resources
  Art DeGaetano, Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Earth and Atmospheric Sci., Cornell University
  
• Evidence of climate change in the Northeastern U.S. (PDF, 1692 KB)
  Cameron Wake, Assoc. Professor, Climate Change Research Ctr., University of New Hampshire
  
• Changes in North American spring as indicated by the lilac phenology network (PDF, 3293 KB)
  Mark Schwartz, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  Panel: Climate change, invasive species, and pest control
  
• Insect pests and population dynamics
  Andrew Gutierrez, Professor, Division of Ecosystem Sci., University of California, Berkeley
  
• Plant disease management (PDF, 207 KB)
  Stella Coakley, Professor and Head, Dept. of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University
  
• Invasive weeds (PDF, 5142 KB)
  L.H. Ziska, Plant Physiologist, Alternate Crop and Systems Lab, USDA-Beltsville
  
• Yield and quality responses of horticultural crops to CO2 and temperature
  Mary Peet, Professor, Dept of Horticultural Sci., North Carolina State University
  
• Results of the recent “National Assessment” of climate change impacts on agriculture (PDF, 226 KB)
  John Reilly, Assoc. Research Director, Program on the Sci. and Policy of Global Change, MIT
  
• Climate change impacts on public and private gardens and landscapes (PDF, 6621 KB)
  Richard Bisgrove, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Hort. and Landscape,University of Reading, UK
  
• Education outreach and data collection through “citizen science” programs (PDF, 8080 KB)
  Robert Stevenson, Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Biology, University of Massachusetts-Boston