** WEATHER CAFE **
Cooler spring delays harvest
Growers note consistently low temperatures

Degree-days
Cumulative degree days – 45 F minimum, 85 F maximum – from Jan. 1 through March 19 in the years designated.

2007 2008 2009
Bellingham 114 69 45
Mount Vernon 133 84 58
Wenatchee 69 64 18
Yakima 106 101 48

By COOKSON BEECHER

Capital Press

Late harvests may be in store for Washington state growers this year, according to reports from the field.

Underscoring the field reports are comparisons of degree-days – also known as heat units – from the start of the year to March 19, which show fewer heat units this year than in 2008 or 2007.

Rufus LaLone, an entomologist and meteorologist, said this year’s situation is worrisome because 2008 had the latest harvests in the region since 1984.

“We’re way behind last year,” LaLone said. “It’s still early, but if March and April stay cold, we’ll really be behind.”

According to LaLone’s Weather Cafe report on March 23, April 3 or 4 should see a return to a cold upper trough dropping down from the Gulf of Alaska bringing wet and unseasonably chilly conditions to the Pacific Northwest for several days. Eastern Washington basins will return to near-winter feel by early April, as cold air aloft will hinder spring. Possibly drier, but nippy weather, is forecast for April 8-12.

Each plant needs a certain number of degree-days before it reaches the next stage of its development.

LaLone compares degree-days to money in the bank.

“If enough heat units are generated, the plants collect them,” LaLone said. “It’s like a savings account. They don’t forget what they’ve accumulated.”

In Skagit County, Wash., William Roozen, co-owner of Washington Bulb, said the daffodils are later this year than last year, and the tulips may go into peak bloom later than usual. His brother John said that in an average year, daffodil harvest runs from Feb. 18 to 22, but this year picking didn’t start until early March.

Many Western Washington farmers say that if the flowers are late, harvest for other crops will probably be late. But John Roozen said Mother Nature calls the shots.

“If the weather warms up, the tulips can go like lightning,” he said.

Skagit County, Wash., potato grower Darrin Morrison said he’s watching soil temperatures, which were still low on March 20.

“It’s a late spring,” he said. “Even our orchard trees haven’t budded out yet.”

In Whatcom County, Wash., Allen Brown, fieldman for Curt Maberry Farm, said that last year crews started the main fungicide spraying regime for blueberries on March 12.

“We haven’t sprayed a single blueberry this year,” he said on March 20. “We’re probably three weeks behind last year.”

Raspberry cane planting is also running late. While Maberry’s usually has all of its new raspberries in by March 20, the farm still had 90 acres to plant, and some growers in the area hadn’t planted any new canes.

“We’ve had a lot of cold weather and freezing temperatures – 18 degrees for three days in a row a week or so ago,” Brown said. “It was like winter.”

Brown said berry growers in his area are praying for sunshine.

“We’re behind, and we want to get going,” he said. “We’re in a hurry-up-and-wait mode.”

LAST YEAR was no great shakes either — Cherry and apples crops took a hit due to unseasonable cold. seehttp://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2008/06/23/story4.html

So maybe that's the deal, Sarah: we got your weather now, you got ours. Climate change is just that: change everywhere of all kinds, even cooler weather sometimes. - Erik, Orion Grassroots Network

So my point is that the world will not warm 10 to 11 degrees everywhere, spread across the board.  This is impossible from a thermodynamic perspective.  I'm sure no scientist would claim this other than to say that mean global average temperatures could climb 10 to 11 degrees over the next century, based on what we know today and how our models work.  A global mean really doesn't say anything about a specific spot on the Earth.