When Matthew Roy moved from New Hampshire in 2020 to start a farm in southwestern Nova Scotia, one of the new crops he zeroed in on was saffron.
Margaret Skinner, a research professor at the University of Vermont, studies the plant and has been working with Roy on his farm, which also grows vegetables and herbs. While warming temperatures make Nova Scotia more hospitable for saffron, other climate effects such as drought and flooding could be harmful.
He highlighted similar problems in Canada, especially the recent heat dome and floods that affected British Columbia over the past couple of years. Usually harvested from mid-October to mid-November, the purple crocus flowers are picked by hand. The petals are separated — also by hand — and the three tiny, delicate stigmas are carefully isolated, then dried in the sun, becoming one of the world's most expensive and sought-after spices.
He said he would like to collaborate with farmers here to understand how climate change is affecting the area and saffron growth. In Canada, the spice is now grown in parts of Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. Martian Creepy Crawlers The European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter has spotted mysterious "spiders" roaming the Red Planet's southern polar region. But they're not the arachnids we've come to fear back on Earth — they're the result of a complex geological process that causes carbon dioxide to sublimate, bringing darker material from below the surface