Cranberries’ Uncertain Future: Farmers Turn to AI to Conquer Climate Change
American consumers typically devour 80 million pounds of cranberries during the holiday season. However, climate change threatens to disrupt this tradition by making it challenging for growers to produce the fruit efficiently. To address this problem, researchers like Dr. Jeffrey Neyhart, a geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are employing artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure a continuous supply of cranberries and keep prices affordable.
Rising temperatures are causing devastating heat stress events that ruin cranberry crops, especially in regions like New Jersey, where temperatures are expected to continue rising. Since cranberries are sensitive crops, they require specific cold climates to thrive. Unfortunately, this makes them extremely vulnerable to climate change’s effects.
To combat the issue, researchers are attempting to identify cranberry varieties that are more resistant to extreme heat. This includes analyzing thousands of cultivars to find those with desired traits such as heat-resistance, taste, coloring, fruit yield, and disease resistance. They then use AI to determine which varieties are most capable of withstanding heat by measuring temperatures across canopies and estimating crop yields through computer vision and image analysis.
The use of AI significantly reduces the time required for this process, allowing researchers to scale up and be more efficient with their resources. Although the results are not yet conclusive, Dr. Neyhart is optimistic and believes that AI can speed up the breeding process. However, he emphasizes that this is a long-term game, and the findings might not be fully reflected in the market for a decade or more.
These efforts are crucial not just for farmers but also for consumers, as lower crop yields will lead to shortages and higher prices. “What New Jersey is experiencing now might be what Wisconsin experiences in 10 [or] 20 years,” Dr. Neyhart warns. “It’s sort of a warning… We need to develop a solution that not only addresses the concerns of growers here, but also can be applied to other growers in other locations where they might experience this stress in the coming years.”
