Growing degree days prediction made by SNRAS student

Ellen Hatch, middle, with her advisors, Meriam Karlsson, left, and Nancy Fresco, right. Dr. Karlsson is a professor of horticulture and Dr. Fresco is coordinator of the SNAP program.

Ellen Hatch, natural resources senior, spent the past year researching growing degree day micro zones in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. “It’s important to look at agriculture in our borough,” Hatch said. Working with Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning (SNAP), Hatch calculated predictions for growing degree days. The other aspect of her work was interviewing local farmers. She presented her senior thesis results April 16 at UAF.

Hatch said she had noticed that USDA plant hardiness zone maps do not take local geography into account, which she was able to do in her study. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there has been an increase in precipitation, longer growing seasons, and northward migration of species due to climate change, she said.

Using SNAP’s climate models, Hatch examined temperature, precipitation, heat receipt, and days to maturity. She took average temperatures from May to September for six different time points, historic and future, and averaged three years surrounding each time point, studied the National Weather Service data from the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, and reviewed Georgeson Botanical Garden publications.

In her summer 2009 interviews, Hatch questioned eight local agriculturists who had directly seeded annual crops and determined specific growing degree days for each cultivar. She divided the borough into nine zones and mapped their progression through time.

She determined there is a “clear upward trend,” with a two percent increase in growing degree days predicted for each decade. Growing degree days increased 17 percent between 1949 and 2099. Local growers use about 70 percent of the growing degree days. More growing degree days could mean greater yields and more variety, Hatch said, affecting the economy, food security, self-reliance, and food quality.

“Studies of the future are not without caveats,” Hatch said. Those might include soil temperature, effective growing degree days, or periods of photosynthesis.

Hatch quoted President Barack Obama, paraphrasing that agriculture is intimately linked with health care and climate change. “We should consider expanding agriculture in the north,” she said.

Anne Miller presented her senior thesis project on the history of the wild berry harvest and use in Alaska from the Palmer Center for Sustainable Living.

She studied Alaska Natives’ use of berries and analyzed the scientific findings about the value of berries. She conducted a survey of Natives about their berry habits, using a website and mailing 226 printed surveys to Native corporations. She received seventy-nine responses.

“Wild berries have an important history in the Native culture,” Miller said. She discovered that forty-eight species of wild berries are used for food, medicine, dye, and crafts. Blueberries proved the most popular. Nearly 100 percent of respondents said their grandparents had used wild berries. To the question, “What level of berry management is acceptable to you?” eighty-two percent said, “Let nature take its course.”

In her conclusions Miller stated that personal interviews would have been a better method than e-mail and mailings if time and funding had allowed. “Wild berries continue to be important and traditional uses are not lost,” she said. “I would encourage Natives to continue to use berries and to learn and revitalize the knowledge to pass on to their children and grandchildren.”

This spring's final senior thesis session will be April 30 at 2:15 p.m. in Arctic Health Research Building, Room 183. Presenters are Quentin Hecimovich, Nicole Swensgard, and Laurel Gale.