Climate Change Making Apples Sweeter, Softer

Apples are getting sweeter but softer due to climate change, according to a new Japanese study that looked at data collected from orchards since 40 years.

The study shows how climate change is affecting common food items and not just some rare, exotic fruits and vegetables. A related study had found that climate change is responsible for the creation of new wine-producing regions.

"Climate changes are impacting the everyday lives of real people. It is not just an abstraction," said Christopher Field, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California. Field wasn't a part of the current study, according to Nature.com.

The study was conducted by researchers at the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan who looked at four-decade data on two varieties of apples grown in Japan- Fuji and Tsugaru.

The data showed that apples have gotten less acidic and softer now than before. Also, the fruits are sweeter now. However, people cannot really make out the differences in taste and texture as the changes occurred gradually.

"But if you could eat an average apple harvested 30 years before and an average apple harvested recently at the same time, you would really taste the difference," Toshihiko Sugiura of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan, one of the study authors told Nature.

According to the researchers, the changes seen in apples could be the result of the flowers blooming early and in higher temperatures.

"We think that a sweeter apple is a positive thing and a loss of firmness is a negative thing," Sugiura told AFP.

The study is published in Nature Scientific Reports.