Walnut trees may not be able to withstand climate change

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2011/111128JacobsWalnut.html

Walnut trees may not be able to withstand climate change

November 28, 2011

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Warmer, drier summers and extreme weather events considered possible as the climate changes would be especially troublesome - possibly fatal - for walnut trees, according to research at Purdue University.

Over five years, Douglass Jacobs, a professor of forestry and natural resources, and Martin-Michel Gauthier, a former doctoral student under Jacobs who is now a research scientist in the Ministry of Natural Resources in Quebec, studied the physiology of walnut trees, which are economically significant in Indiana for their lumber and veneer, and in other areas for their nuts. They found that the trees are especially sensitive to particular climates.

"Walnut is really restricted to sites not too wet or dry. It has an extremely narrow range," said Jacobs, whose findings were published in the December issue of Annals of Forest Science. "We suspect and predict that climate change is going to have a real impact on walnuts. We may see some type of decline of the species."

Specifically, walnuts would have difficulty tolerating droughts that could be associated with a changing climate.

…

[DCKit]

1. Which walnut trees?

The most economically valuable are English walnuts, but the Black walnut (more so) for timber and it's niche market for nuts.

[Lasher]

2. I wonder which of the walnut species this article is about.

Is it about them all - from the American Black Walnut (AKA the Eastern Black Walnut), Juglans nigra; to the English Walnut, Juglans regia? Is it about one, more, or all of the four Juglans genus sections? One or more of the 21 species? We are left to wonder.

I am surprised to see this article did not clearly make this important distinction, particularly since it came from Perdue University.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. It appears to regard Walnuts in general

…

Context Walnuts (Juglans spp.) are ecologically and commercially important trees, yet synthesis of past and current research findings on walnut ecophysiology is lacking, especially in terms of potential acclimation to climate change.

…

[Lasher]

5. It appears that might be the case.

But they should have been explicit in this, don't you think? Particularly from a scholarly source.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Remember, it’s a Press Release, not the research paper itself

Most likely, the press release was written by someone in the Public Relations department, to be read by common people.

[NickB79]

4. Screw it, I'm still planting some buartnuts come spring

I'm at the northern range for walnuts, so maybe they'll hold on for another century up here even if they start dying off further south.