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Comment by mahesh_rm | Hacker News Reader

As an Italian who's been living at the equator for a while.. Would you bet a big part of your capital knowing that a snowstorm in January can wipe out 20 years worth of growing avocado or mango plants? As much as 2.7 degrees in average temperature rise, though dramatic, does not prevent the possibility of a month in a winter of rigid temperatures, where your whole avocados and mangos plantation freezes to death.

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I would add (also as an Italian) that a not so uncommon crop (not only in Sicily) has been in recent (last 20 or so) years kiwis.

Don't ask me the reason why, but somehow they (the Italian ones) taste very unlike what a kiwi (in Oz or NZ) tastes, they are somehow less sweet and more sour.

Maybe it is a different species or the different kinds of ground or maybe they are harvested and brought to market at different stages, but I believe that somehow is the difference in climate (even if NZ and Italy are not so different).

AFAIK most people in EU (that hadn't the occasion to taste the "real" thing) get used to the taste, but when (if) they happen to go to NZ they suddenly realize that they had been eating something "different".

Many supermarkets import both, and even after that excessively long transport from NZ to EU you can easily tell the difference, both by look and by taste. Definitively different breed. I personally also prefer the NZ version.

While I don't have knowledge of Italy or Kiwi, here in my US state of Georgia this year our watermelon has been extremely good. Very sweet and big melons. Much better than any year in recent memory.

I was listening to some journalism on the subject and the farmers association promoting this produce claimed it was due to a very good growing season with no freezes or bad weather and that conditions remained ideal for basically the entire season, which almost never happens.

Perhaps the quality of flavor of the kiwi is just affected by the climate and soil.

Another example more relevant to Italy might be the D.O.P. canned marzano tomatoes, which have unique flavors due to the soil and climate they are grown in in Italy.

>Another example more relevant to Italy might be the D.O.P. canned marzano tomatoes, which have unique flavors due to the soil and climate they are grown in in Italy.

Yep, and you should taste them before they are being put inside the cans ...

> Perhaps the quality of flavor of the kiwi is just affected by the climate and soil.

That's almost certainly what is happening, unless they have some separate cultivar that was bred to better withstand the Italian climate where they are grown, which is also quite possible.

Berries are an easy one to compare this effect to in North America - you can often tell the difference between a good growing year and a bad one from strawberries, which prefer hot springs and early summers with little rain, and will taste differently if they get cold temperatures and a very wet spring.

Source: grew up in farm country, have picked single cultivar source berries for preserves/freezing/eating for many years.

It's the concept of "Terroir":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir

The same crops acquire very specific characteristics based on the geographical location they are planted.

I never tried salad tomatoes as sweet and flavorful as those I used to eat as a kid in Sicily...

San Marzano tomatoes, the exact name, are the most well known of the relatively few varieties that have the appropriate shape and size to be canned (as you are stuffing a fixed number of Whole tomatoes in a can, shape and size is very important) and they are really good for canning only in a limited part of the South, e.g. near Caserta.

>>I would add (also as an Italian) that a not so uncommon crop (not only in Sicily) has been in recent (last 20 or so) years kiwis.

I was given the option of purchasing those kiwis with cold hardy rootstock though. So I guess grafted ones with the right rootstock survive. Same with oranges, mandarins, and lemons. Those with some sort of Russian rootstock all survived, those with Sicilian and Pugliese rootstock didn't.

Yep, they survive just fine in Italy (I have no idea of what breed or rootstock they use), Italy has become the second producer in the world, on par or surpassing New Zealand and only second to China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwifruit

http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QC

Still, they taste IMHO different.

I read a short story by Chekhov which involved a Cherry Orchard (it may well have been The Cherry Orchard although that's a play, I think it was The Black Monk) in which a frost was forecast so they set smoke billowing making fires, I imagine to stave off the cold killing the fruit. I've not heard much about that, and I imagine the Russians are quite adept at coming up with genius solutions to get a crop to harvest.

It always struck me as an amazing image, the contrast of reading it whilst being banged around on a tube train making it all the more amazing.

Planting fire lanterns at night for example in the middle of vineyards, to prevent exceptional frost from damaging the harvest, is an ancient agricultural practice.

In Italy I think it was used last year. Here's an article with a gallery of pictures:

https://www.altoadige.it/foto/locale/la-notte-pi%C3%B9-fredd...

Niagara region uses small wind turbines to turnover the really cold air at ground level that gets « stuck » at crop level with warmer upper air.

Helicopters are a more expensive way of doing this.

Farmers also use helicopters to prevent frost from destroying fruit.

https://blog.aopa.org/aopa/2016/08/23/flying-frost-control/

You'd probably hedge with insurance and I would take an option on propane heaters and polyvinyl! Also plant cold hardy variants (if they exist).

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