Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 08/05/2008 9:05:55 AM PDT by SJackson
An army of local gardeners is tracking the impact of climate change on backyard flora
When Tom Koulentes is not advising students at Highland Park High School or chasing after his own kids, he spends time behind his small Des Plaines home researching climate change.
Koulentes is recording his garden's natural history, from the weigela's first leaf to the butterfly bush's last bloom, for Project BudBurst, a new nationwide research program based on the observations of ordinary people. He is looking for local signs like an early bloom or a late-falling leaf that stem from planetwide changes.
Only a handful of researchers study plants to chronicle global warming, but millions of gardeners quietly keep watch on their plants. BudBurst seeks to tap that potential, asking "citizen scientists" to monitor plants alongside trained scholars.
"If just scientists were working on this, there's no way we could obtain a data set of this size," said Kay Havens, director of plant science and conservation at the Chicago Botanic Garden, and one of the project's organizers.
Participants in BudBurst monitor one or more plants, native or non-native, throughout the growing season. Along the way, they record and report the dates of events such as the first flower or first seed. Like many citizen science programs, BudBurst is modeled after the Audubon Christmas bird count, an annual volunteer effort that has provided ornithologists with a century's worth of data.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
My dogs monitor tomatos for ripeness. When they're ripe and no ones looking, they eat them. I'll start keeping track of the date.
That'll certainly add weight to the scientific consensus concerning man made global warming.
Here’s my contribution:
Last year there was a freeze in April. It got the peach blossoms. No peaches
This year there was a cool and rainy May, June, and early July. The heat racheted up in the past few weeks and there have been some solid hot nights (an old backyard gardener told me this was necessary for tomatoes, melons and summer fruits). Combined with the rainwater, Peaches.
I happen to participate in the Audubon CBC every year, but I don't do it for the "citizen science" of it. I, and just about every other counter I know, do it because we love birds and birding.
My advice? If you like to garden and keep records, do it because you like to garden and keep records. But, jeez, don't pretend you're doing something to save the planet.
Gardening PING!!!!!!!!!!
I wonder why farmers for the past hundred or so years didn't just write the date down?
Why bother planting corn “when the oak leaves are the size of a squirrels foot” when they could just use a set date?
Garden ping.
My garden shows no sign of global warming. It’s the same every year, I plant too early, then a cold snap comes and I cover everything up.
Then it gets really hot and I water everything.
We’ve actually had a lot of rain during early summer.
I’ve been getting lots of greenbeans and tomatos, once my freeper friends advised me on how to eradicate the blossom end rot. Been giving them to my Mom’s elderly neighbors.
I do have to add some lime, but the coop is out of it. I’ll do it before next planting season.
Observation: Not nearly as many raspberries on my backyard bushes this year. I suspect (through direct observation) that my kids are eating them.
Headline: Overpopulation is also leading to localized food shortages. Children hardest hit.
Every oldtimer I know used the “Farmers Almanac.”
They can tell you what to plant when the moon is full, etc. Amazingly it works.
Freeper Billhilly is a bird watcher too. Billhilly, meet flycatcher. Flycatcher, meet billhilly.
I’m far from an expert, but have enjoyed the birds using my feeders and birdhouses I put up this year.
I have a lot of birds of prey (big hoot owls, hawks, a few eagles) and those beautiful woodpeckers. I also have a lot of bats at night that swarm my motion lights and one street light we had put out here (otherwise nighttime would be pitch black).
That reminds me, I need to refill my hummingbird feeders. I also have a lot of hummers.
Not to mention no uniform standards of observation and self-selection of observers inclined to report changes they think are associated with globull wormening. . .
I used to do the Feeder Watch but I quit when I caught myself inflating numbers so I could be ‘Cool”. I would imagine a garden survey would be very subjective to the gardeners whims...
We’ve got some severe global cooling going on here in northwest Montana.
We had a bunch of snow on June 10th from which my tomatoes have not recovered. I have about three tomatoes. Last year I had dozens. No salsa for me this summer!
Last year 20 out of 30 days in July were above 95. This year, there were none. It’s actually getting into the mid 40’s at night and we have been about 80 during the day.
It’s been rather pleasant!
Exactly. "Sure, my azaleas bloomed late this year, but I reckon that's because I didn't water them as I ought to have, so that don't count. My tomatoes, on the other hand, are really doing fine. I'm gonna mark that done as a Global Warming factoid ..."
I guess you'll find a little of everything here.
Yes, we're a lonely bunch, we birders... ;)
LOL!
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