California Ventures into Farming Avocados, Mangoes, Agave in Response to Climate Change

As a response to climate change, California is already preparing its farms for agave, avocados, and mangoes.

Avocados, Mangoes, Agave

Gary Gragg, a nurseryman, hopes to be able to cultivate and sell heat-loving mangoes in Northern California as the state's climate warms. The climate is getting better for the region's frost-sensitive mango trees, as well as for Gragg's Golden Gate Palms nursery's specialty fruits including avocados, cherimoyas, and tropical palms. To adapt to change, farmers throughout the state are experimenting with new crops and variants engineered to better withstand the more unpredictable weather.

Farmers are putting money into agave, a drought-resistant succulent produced in Mexico to create tequila, and avocados, which are typically planted further south, according to UC Davis.

Climate Change

Climate change effectively implies that Washington and Oregon are starting to resemble the climates of Northern California while Southern California's conditions are advancing up the coast and into the valley. The factors that affect whether crops can be cultivated where include fog, precipitation, winds, and seasonal and daily temperature patterns. All of these factors have changed.

Researchers forecast that several of the major tree crops being grown in California won't be supported by the climate by the middle to end of the 21st century.

This study was published in 2009 by Luedeling and several colleagues in the science journal PLOS ONE.

Resilient Orchards

In order to increase the resilience of California's lucrative pistachio, walnut, and stone fruit orchards, UC Davis researchers are selectively breeding for qualities including heat, disease, and drought tolerance. The most at-risk crops to climate change, however, are fruit and nut trees, with high winter temperatures having the potential to reduce walnut production around once every ten years. The southern San Joaquin Valley has this effect once every five years, and Katherine Jarvis-Shean, an orchard advisor with the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources program, cautioned that it would be more severe further south.

Researchers are striving to save these priceless orchards from the impacts of global warming since the state is home to more than 400,000 acres of matured pistachio trees, which are worth close to $3 billion. Less pollination and crop failure can arise from male cultivars blooming too late and releasing pollen after the female flowers have opened. According to Patrick Brown, a nut crop producer at UC Davis, this issue has been temporarily rectified by grafting more male kinds with various blooming periods into the groves.

California's subtropical future?

Although the winter of 2023 was unusually cold, Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist, claims that it is not a sign of a trend toward nut-friendly weather. Since warm winters have become more typical, he thinks that some locations may have had their coldest winter up to this point. The majority of California's 50,000-acre avocado farmland is situated between San Diego and Santa Barbara and generates over $300 million in annual direct farm sales. Other fruits that are less well-known to most Americans, like white sapote, ice cream bean, uvaia, cherimoya, guabiroba, and dragonfruit may become important crops in a "warmer" California.

Nate Blackmore of Wildlands Farm and Nursery is leading a new orchard project near Santa Cruz that will include lucuma trees, which resemble round avocados with mealy, sweet yam-like flesh and are frost-tolerant.

Also, although California's climate is changing, coffee production is not sustainable since it requires imported water. However, pitaya or dragonfruit can be grown with less water, making it more ideal for areas that are prone to drought, Cal Matters reports.