As soil temperature rises, pest and pathogen activity becomes more active.
As the Earth gradually warms due to climate change, growing Christmas trees is becoming more difficult.
According to the Associated Press on the 19th (local time), as the soil becomes warmer and more humid due to global warming, the number of cases of seedlings used for Christmas trees suffering from fungal diseases is increasing.
‘Phytophthora root rot’, one of the fungal diseases, is, as its name suggests, a fungus that lives on the roots and sucks moisture from seedlings, causing them to dry out and die.
Jim Rockies, who grows trees in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, said, “As time goes by, more and more trees are becoming diseased. Once a tree becomes diseased, it is only a matter of time before it withers.”
According to statistics, over the past two years, an unexpectedly high number of evergreen trees in Washington and Oregon have died from fungal diseases. Professor Gary Chastagner of Washington State University expressed concern, saying, “The frequency of Phytophthora bacteria is increasing due to changes in soil temperature and moisture content.”
Weather conditions that can stress trees are also favorable conditions for many pests and diseases that harm trees, such as insects and fungi. “Changes in forests and agricultural lands will not happen overnight,” said Professor Bert Cregg of Michigan State University. “But as global warming progresses, some tree species may become difficult to cultivate over time.” .
“Soil temperature is measured differently than air temperature, making it difficult to determine long-term trends,” said Melissa Wiedhalm, a climatologist at Purdue University in the US. “We are having difficulty securing it,” he said.
Armudena Garcia of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany, said her team plans to study more soil temperature changes in more locations in the future.
He added, “We are always actively studying extreme phenomena measured in the atmosphere, but we don’t know much about what happens below our feet.”
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.