Global warming caused too many negative consequences

Tag : fig
"People don't believe I can have a fig tree this large" andfruitful, she says, looking up into its leafy branches. But she isnot alone. Global warming, or milder winters at least, have broughtthe age of the mega fig tree to Washington.
Other mild-winter plants that would normally be killed or beatenback by Washington's past winters are making it, includingpomegranates, the Southern muscadine grape and tender sages. But inthis season of harvest, it's figs that delight and astonish ownerssuch as the Clarks. Unlike other fruit trees, such as peaches,plums and even apples, fig trees don't need spraying to preventpests and diseases, and the fruit is as fleeting as it is sweet andbountiful.
Once a shrub that routinely failed to sprout after a harsh winter,this fabled plant of the Bible can be found locally growing closeto the mature size of its ancestors in the Middle East. MichaelMcConkey, a fruit tree nurseryman in Afton, Va., says it has beenat least 12 winters since fig trees were knocked back in thisregion, and the result has been the emergence of such giants as theClarks' variety, named English Brown Turkey.
McConkey, owner of Edible Landscaping, says the top growth of figtrees can be killed with winter temperatures as relatively warm as20 degrees with sustained high winds. A shrub would typicallyregrow from suckers and take two or three years to fruit again. Hehas seen only some tip dieback in recent winters and says that afig planted in a sheltered site, particularly inside the Beltway,seems a safe bet these days.
Having grown up in Adelphi in the 1960s, he says he remembers onefriend with a fig tree. "It would die back every year."
Average winter temperatures at Reagan National Airport have been higher than usual in 13 of the past 18 winters,according to the National Weather Service . A 2007 report on climate change in the Northeast, produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists , stated that winter temperatures rose at a rate of 1.3 degrees perdecade between 1970 and 2000.
"In the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic region, the wintershave been warming fairly dramatically," says David Wolfe, aplant ecologist from Cornell University who worked on the report.
Global warming may be good for figs, "but overall the factthat the Earth is warming up is not a good thing," saysElliott Negin, spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists."There are too many negative consequences."
Nor are figs out of the woods, so to speak. Winters may be gettingwarmer, but they appear to be more volatile, Wolfe says. Swings inwinter temperature can harm plants in two ways: by not allowingthem to go into a protective hibernation before freezes occur or bywaking them too early so that new buds and shoots are killed byfrost. Another negative aspect of this, Wolfe says, is the prospectof more insect pests surviving the winter.
"There's no question that the basic trend of a longer growingseason, warmer winters and reduced risk of freeze damage willsettle in eventually, but in that transition period the variabilityof winters could lead to some serious freeze damage on some ofthese perennials," Wolfe says.