If Lettuces Don’t Get It, Tomatoes Will!!
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Anybody would think they don’t grow tomatoes abroad!
From the Telegraph:
Tomatoes are grown virtually everywhere in the world, including countries much warmer than the UK. The idea that a warmer climate will wipe out our tomato plants is ridiculous:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tomato_production
As with all of these invasive bugs and diseases, the problem lies with international traffic, not climate. For instance, this is what Wikipedia has to say about the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug:
N America
The brown marmorated stink bug was accidentally introduced into the United States from China or Japan. It is believed to have hitched a ride as a stowaway in packing crates or on various types of machinery. The first documented specimen was collected in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in September 1998.[4][13] Several Muhlenberg College students were reported to have seen these bugs as early as August of that same year.[14][15] Between 2001 and 2010, 54 sightings were reported of these bugs at shipping ports in the United States.[16] However, stink bugs are not listed as reportable, meaning that they do not need to be reported and no action is required to remove the insect. This allowed the insect to enter the United States relatively easily, as they are able to survive long periods of time in hot or cold conditions.
Other reports have the brown marmorated stink bug documented as early as 2000 in New Jersey from a blacklight trap run by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Vegetable Integrated Pest Management program in Milford, New Jersey.[17]
In 2002, in New Jersey, it was found on plant material in Stewartsville, and was collected from blacklight traps in Phillipsburg and Little York. It was quickly documented and established in many counties in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, and New York on the eastern coast of the United States.
By 2009, this agricultural pest had reached Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and Oregon.[18] In 2010 it was found in Indiana,[19] Michigan,[20] Minnesota,[21] and other states.[22]
As of November 2011, it had spread to 34 U.S. states[5] and by 2012 to 40, and showed an increase of 60% in total numbers over 2011.[23]
Their populations have also spread to southern Ontario and Quebec, Canada.[24][25] They have recently been found in southern British Columbia and Southern Alberta.[citation neede
Europe
The brown marmorated stink bug was likely first introduced to Europe during the repair work of the Chinese Garden in Zürich, Switzerland in the winter of 1998. The stink bug has been traced back to have travelled with roof tiles that were imported from Beijing, China.[37] The bug has since spread rapidly through Europe. The first sighting in southern Germany was made in Konstanz in 2011.[38] In Italy the first specimens were found in Modena in 2012[39] and afterwards in South Tirol in 2016.[40] The bug has also been sighted in Vienna, Austria, with increasing reports after 2016.[41] The Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia announced from 2017 to distribute 3.5 million euros to offset the costs of the lost crops of the fruit farmers until the year 2020.[42] H. halys was first found in Portugal in Pombal in late 2018 or early 2019[43] – a few live specimens were found in agricultural equipment being imported from Italy.[43] However the Portuguese National Authority for Animal Health regards this as a transitory interception.[43] In 2019 there may have been another sighting somewhere in Portugal.[44] Only in 2020 was H. halys confirmed to be reproducing and overwintering in the country.[43] In March 2021, it was confirmed to have arrived in the UK
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Nil points on the climate scare-ometer for that one.
We can at least show appreciation with a slow hand clap.
I sense a palpable desperation among the dark forces distributing this nonsense to media outlets. they know they are losing the argument which is why they are frantic about forcing binding legislation upon us all before it is too late.
Had the RHS had not become yet another of our institutions subverted by Rudi Dutschke’s infiltration plan, it might be fighting the bans on useful insecticides and fungicides designed to combat these various bugs and diseases.
Legislation has made it so expensive to develop new ways of combatting pests that hardly anyone now takes the risk – and when they do, an orchestrated protest whipped up by the ‘organic’ brigade soon has it banned. See DDT for the textbook example.
Meanwhile, anyone daft enough still to be paying for RHS membership will be gratified to know they are paying for someone to waste their subscription money pondering the ‘what ifs?’ predicted by deranged modellers.
Don’t forget also the “coulds”, the “mights” and the “maybes”……
1998!! Is this a modelled estimate? Do these people think nothing happened before they were born?
I can say with confidence the bugs were alive and kicking in southern France well before this date.
Very stupid article.
And in Limousin. It was easier to gow tomatoes outside there as well, could it be something to do with it being warmer I wonder
I’ll keep my fingers crossed but the change I’ve noticed from moving to Burgundy from Scotland is that I can grow my tomatoes outdoors. Also courgettes, cucumbers, sweet corn …
The only persistent failure has been runner beans which we have now given up on.
What is it with these people that a climate a couple of degrees warmer has no positives AT ALL?! The negatives we can handle as we always have.
Mike, Runner Beans didn’t do well in Limousin either. I’m now back in the UK due to family rather than Brexit. Trying runner beans here although one lot are looking like I started them too early
Maybe it is just a coincidence that 1998 was a warm year. It was augmented by the strong 1998 La-Nina that followed the strong 1997 El-Nino….oscillating back and forth across the equatorial Pacific…carrying stink bugs?
Among those states listed, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia have never had a warmer year since 1921.
Mass invasions of stinkbugs notwithstanding, I defy anyone in Britain to grow a substantial crop of tomatoes without the greenhouse effect.
(groan)
Guess they had to go to bugs since tomatoes are tropical and the climate game would fall a little flat.
Umm. Someones missed the most obvious here, we don’t grow them outside in the UK. We grow them at elevated temperature in glass houses.
Sid And usually with enhanced levels of (say it quietly) CO2
Warmth isn’t the problem here but crap bio-security and, as the Badger alludes to above, a failure of pest control. These ridiculous stories appear to be coming out on an almost daily basis at the moment. One would think that there’s either a climate conference coming up soon or a bit of pre-global cooling panic, or perhaps a bit of both?
I’m sure the forthcoming Grand Solar Minimum will sort it all out.
Then we can all chill out!
Bugs eat plants. Who knew?
John
Invasions of illegal (and legal) immigrants are a result of globalisation and global trade. nothing to do with the weather. next we’ll hear that all those rubber dinghys crossing the Channel are coming for the warmer british weather!
Ironically the greenhouse operators growing tomatoes not only warm up the temperature but increase the CO2 concentration to about 1000 ppmV, which is about 2.5 times the present level. Which suggests tomatoes would just love global warming, if there was any.
In the supermarkets in my area greenhouse tomatoes have been getting cheaper and cheaper over the last several years and are now usually a little lower in price than outdoor grown ones.