A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Climate change shows up in unexpected places, like blueberries. Weather observers in Massachusetts have been tracking wild blueberries for decades, and it turns out they've been reacting to our warming climate. Here's Bianca Garcia from WBUR.
BIANCA GARCIA, BYLINE: A wild blueberry bush grows atop the tallest mountain in the Greater Boston area.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)
GARCIA: There are plenty of blueberries here on Great Blue Hill. They're native to the region. But one shrub in particular is special. Scientists have been recording the date of the first ripe blueberry for more than a hundred years.
AMANDA JOLY: You just never know, and it happens so quick sometimes.
GARCIA: Amanda Joly is the deputy weather chief at the Blue Hill Observatory. She keeps an eye on the bush, starting in May.
JOLY: And then it almost seems like overnight, it just pops.
GARCIA: Each time she checks for blueberries, she also records the weather. She reads the humidity sensor, temperature gauge and rain catcher. And this year, she let NPR listen in on her blueberry updates.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOLY: Today's date is Friday, June 5. The leaves are a lot fuller than they were...
The blueberries themselves are still green. It is Thursday, June 11, the size of a small pea.
It's Friday, June 19. They just have dramatically changed in color.
GARCIA: Until...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOLY: Today is Wednesday, June 24, and we have our first ripe blueberry of the season.
GARCIA: There is only one way to know for sure. Joly's colleague, Matthew Douglas, actually beat her to finding the berry.
MATTHEW DOUGLAS: I'm the one that tasted the ripe blueberry (laughter).
JOLY: What did it taste like?
DOUGLAS: Well, it wasn't sweet and it wasn't tart. It was just kind of in between.
GARCIA: From all that taste testing, the scientists at Blue Hill have been able to identify a trend. On average, the bush ripens about a week earlier than it did in the 1800s. Joly says blueberry bushes respond to the weather, rainfall, temperature and sunlight.
JOLY: The Blueberry bush doesn't have a calendar. It doesn't know when it's supposed to ripen. It is out in the elements 24/7, 365, all seasons.
GARCIA: And those seasons are changing. The observatory's data shows that Blue Hill is warming faster than other parts of the country. The date of the first ripe fruit bounces around from year to year. This year's berry actually came later than average. But when you look at how the bush has changed over decades, it's clear that the berries are ripening earlier. That trend is only visible because the observatory has been keeping this record for 141 years - no breaks.
THERESA CRIMMINS: This is phenomenal. This is rare. This is really rare. It's really special.
GARCIA: Theresa Crimmins is an associate professor at the University of Arizona, studying how plants react to the seasons. The Blue Hill scientists haven't fully analyzed their data yet, but Crimmins says the trend they observed with the blueberries is happening all over nature as a result of climate change.
CRIMMINS: Winter is shrinking (laughter) and we see as a consequence, plants and animals largely undergoing their seasonal transitions, especially spring and summer, earlier than they used to in previous decades.
GARCIA: This, of course, is something that people who grow and harvest blueberries already know. Wild blueberries are a thing in the Northeast this time of year. During the summer, people are all about finding them, picking them and eating them. But warm springs can be lethal for the crop. Higher temperatures can fool blueberry bushes into flowering earlier, which makes them more vulnerable to being killed in a late frost.
Ashley Field is a farmer in Midcoast Maine and co-owner of Fields Fields Blueberries. Three years ago, she lost 80% of her crop to a frost.
ASHLEY FIELD: It's very heartbreaking, I think, was the biggest impact. It's just hard to see all of your - those beautiful white blossoms basically just turn brown and shrivel up.
GARCIA: Her blueberries ripen a little later than Blue Hill because she's further north. One can only hope they hold out a little longer.
For NPR News, I'm Bianca Garcia in Milton, Massachusetts.
(SOUNDBITE OF RICKARD JAVERLING'S "SALT HILL PT 1") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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