Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Open Access)

Department

Colby College. Environmental Studies Program

Advisor(s)

Dr. Philip Nyhus

Second Advisor

Dr. Amanda Gallinat

Third Advisor

Dr. Kristen Nolting

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly affecting the growing conditions that farmers face. This study focused on if and how the growing conditions of apples have changed over the past two decades. Apples are an economically, socially, and culturally important crop to Maine's agriculture landscape. By production acreage, Maine is the second largest state in New England, with 2700 acres of land used to grow apples (USDA NASS CoA, 2022). A unique characteristic of agricultural production in Maine is that most farms are small-scale, run by families or small groups, making adverse changes to the growing conditions of a major crop in the region particularly harmful to people's livelihoods.

This study aimed to identify change trends in climatic variables as these variables may influence what pests and pathogens will affect apple trees and the level of frost risk and damage apple blossoms and fruits face. I first identified the primary concern of apple growers in New England by interviewing farmers, orchardists, and cooperative extension agents across the region. I used answers from growers to identify what issues they experienced frequently and the level of damage these issues caused. I studied if Maine had experienced a change in average precipitation (mm). I also studied if the risk of frost exposure changed in the fall and spring. I assessed this by (a) measuring the frequency of freeze-thaw events during the fall and spring and (b) studying if the date of the first frost event in the fall and last frost event in the spring had shifted earlier or later (c) across 13 locations in Maine.

Using data from the Maine Pomological Society and NCEI-NOAA, I found that average precipitation was overall declining, but variability was present. For the entire state, the first day of fall frost has shifted 0.37 days later per year, and the last day of spring frost is inter-annually variable, as is the frequency of freeze-thaw cycles in the fall and spring. Overall, the growing conditions of apples in Maine experience many interannual variations, and the conditions growers face are unpredictable. This paper makes a few recommendations on how to preserve the productivity and fruit quality of orchards to deal with the observed interannual variability of growing conditions.

Keywords

Apple, Climate Change, Frost Risk, Precipitation

Anooshka Sethi

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