Olives. Wine grapes. Lavender. In Provence, seasonal changes in temperature, rain, fungi, disease, and pests are harming these specialized luxury crops. Ongoing research suggests even the oak trees needed to produce the region’s $600-a-kilogram truffles could be growing slower, perhaps a lot.
Across the Mediterranean region, a spreading bacterial infection, low rain, high temperatures, and a fruit-fly infestation assisted by climate change already drove the olive industry last year to its worst production since the 1950s, when frozen ground wiped out millions of plants. Production fell 17 percent in one year.
“The olive tree is a pretty rugged crop that can withstand long periods of high heat and no rain, but only to a point and with diminishing yields,” says Curtis Cord, editor of an independent industry news website, Olive Oil Times.
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Scientists increasingly understand the direct impacts of climate change on animals and plants. But there are indirect changes, too: Some wasps build their homes inside acorns–unless warming temperatures cause the acorns to grow early. If flowers bloom weeks too soon, the insects that usually accompany them may not arrive in time. If grasses that hold back dirt on hillsides sprout and die before the rainy season, floods could alter the ecology of the landscape. Such phenological changes can cascade through ecosystems, throwing relationships between plants and animals out of whack.
Every day I see the same things. Every day I still love it.
Christine Cheylan, olive grower
Provence growers, particularly of lavender and its hybrid sister, lavandin, are trying everything to fight back: planting newer hybrid crops, adding irrigation, masking their fields with other plants to fool meddlesome cicadas. They’re struggling to keep up.