Climate is everything in farming. The timing of rains and the larger clockwork of the seasons is what makes farming possible. One can provide plants with all the conditions they need and stimulate them to produce by keeping them healthy and pest free. One can add compost regularly, mulch the beds, add minerals and organic supplements and provide the "best possible" situation for your crops but one cannot make them grow.
What makes plants grow, especially food plants, is a regular and reliable set of climate conditions that are beyond any human ability to control. I have my own ideas about how much we contribute to climate change and global warming but my experience has shown me that even minor deviations from the necessary set of conditions leads to lower productivity, greater infestations and inferior foodstuffs at harvest time.
Currently, we are experiencing the weather "pattern" known as El Nino. I had known it was expected for months, since February at least, and I paid close attention to our fruit trees where signs of early and/or irregular flowering signal the onset of El Nino. I had learned that white-faced or cappuchin monkeys, a fruit-eating ape, suffer population declines in El Nino years because trees bloom and fruit irregularly. The early and irregular blooming leads to shrunken fruit, immature fruit falling off the trees and tends to occur in large areas of the jungle forest. This last aspect denies the monkeys the chance to forage effectively as the consumption of limited fruit stocks is only achieved through extremely long treks through depleted forest.
Our fruit trees exhibited this exact behavior, blooming early for our altitude. The flowers were abundant but before long they had withered and what little fruit developed fell off the trees while green.
The coffee plants flowered evenly leaving the plantation in beautiful white blooms from creek to heights. The beans started well and developed as they should, but along the way the bushes redeveloped orange rust fungus (roya) which required spraying with copper and a fungicide. Luckily these chemicals are not phytotoxic and do not remain in the plant or in the beans.
The re-appearance of roya at a time when the plants are usually free of infections is an example of the irregularity I have noticed in the last years.
Another consequence of this irregular weather "pattern" is that plants grow sporadically. There are reasons for this, namely the uneven rainfall pattern and the intensification of ground temperatures due to days of cloudless skies. We are nearly 8C warmer than normal for this time of year.
The rainy season in Costa Rica where we live should now be in full swing. We should be receiving the majority of our rains now, in these last 4 and remaining 2 months of the season. The reality is nowhere near expectations. I have been using irrigation water on the crops and have hooked up sprinklers this winter which is unheard of.
When rains do fall, they seem to come at exactly the wrong moment for the crops. Plants in the fields, growing under the hot sunny sky, do not do well when a strong coldwater shower rushes down from the mountains. The cold rains shock the hot plants and cause the plants to stop growing for periods of days.
Fruiting tomatoes chilled by such rains remain stunted for a week in some cases.
This slowdown in development can cause the tomatoes to develop blight or be easy prey for whiteflies and mites. At times plants leaves get "burned" by the temperature change.
These storms are not overly common in these parts. But locals say that they are becoming the norm. If so, much of what we grow outdoors will have to move to covered beds.
What makes plants grow, especially food plants, is a regular and reliable set of climate conditions that are beyond any human ability to control. I have my own ideas about how much we contribute to climate change and global warming but my experience has shown me that even minor deviations from the necessary set of conditions leads to lower productivity, greater infestations and inferior foodstuffs at harvest time.
Currently, we are experiencing the weather "pattern" known as El Nino. I had known it was expected for months, since February at least, and I paid close attention to our fruit trees where signs of early and/or irregular flowering signal the onset of El Nino. I had learned that white-faced or cappuchin monkeys, a fruit-eating ape, suffer population declines in El Nino years because trees bloom and fruit irregularly. The early and irregular blooming leads to shrunken fruit, immature fruit falling off the trees and tends to occur in large areas of the jungle forest. This last aspect denies the monkeys the chance to forage effectively as the consumption of limited fruit stocks is only achieved through extremely long treks through depleted forest.
Our fruit trees exhibited this exact behavior, blooming early for our altitude. The flowers were abundant but before long they had withered and what little fruit developed fell off the trees while green.
The coffee plants flowered evenly leaving the plantation in beautiful white blooms from creek to heights. The beans started well and developed as they should, but along the way the bushes redeveloped orange rust fungus (roya) which required spraying with copper and a fungicide. Luckily these chemicals are not phytotoxic and do not remain in the plant or in the beans.
The re-appearance of roya at a time when the plants are usually free of infections is an example of the irregularity I have noticed in the last years.
Another consequence of this irregular weather "pattern" is that plants grow sporadically. There are reasons for this, namely the uneven rainfall pattern and the intensification of ground temperatures due to days of cloudless skies. We are nearly 8C warmer than normal for this time of year.
The rainy season in Costa Rica where we live should now be in full swing. We should be receiving the majority of our rains now, in these last 4 and remaining 2 months of the season. The reality is nowhere near expectations. I have been using irrigation water on the crops and have hooked up sprinklers this winter which is unheard of.
When rains do fall, they seem to come at exactly the wrong moment for the crops. Plants in the fields, growing under the hot sunny sky, do not do well when a strong coldwater shower rushes down from the mountains. The cold rains shock the hot plants and cause the plants to stop growing for periods of days.
Fruiting tomatoes chilled by such rains remain stunted for a week in some cases.
This slowdown in development can cause the tomatoes to develop blight or be easy prey for whiteflies and mites. At times plants leaves get "burned" by the temperature change.
These storms are not overly common in these parts. But locals say that they are becoming the norm. If so, much of what we grow outdoors will have to move to covered beds.
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