Aru Nair
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I mean, kind of, because it's not like each stage takes a set amount of time.
This bloom cycle is super dependent on the weather and specifically the temperature.
So I talked to Elizabeth Wolkovich about this.
She's an associate professor of forest and conservation sciences at the University of British Columbia.
Wait, what does she mean by a bucket of spring warmth?
Like a physical bucket?
So not a physical bucket.
Think of it more like a threshold of warmth that the trees need to reach in order to bloom.
Different plants have different sized buckets to fill.
Cherry trees have smaller buckets, which is why they come out so early in the spring.
But it is a little bit more complicated than that, even for cherry blossoms.
the period of cold that the plants need before they get ready to bloom.
It's called winter chilling.
And scientists have observed this for a while.
You might have observed it too.