Growing season warmer and longer

THE growing season has increased by four weeks for some species in the south west,over the past 30 years.

This finding by Trinity College Dublin, from gardens where annual indicators such as time of leaf-budding are recorded, is a consequences of climate change.

Met Eireann records show that over the past 50 years, mean temperatures increased by about three-quarters of a degree, according to Ray McGrath of the Community Climate Change Consortium for Ireland, C4I, a regional climate modelling initiative run out of Met Eireann in collaboration with UCD.