One morning in mid-September, Jed Colquhoun, an expert in fruit and vegetable production systems, hopped on the phone to discuss the state of cranberries and climate change in the state of Wisconsin, our country’s most bountiful producer of that tart indigenous berry.

“Today’s a great example of what we’re dealing with,” he said from his office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he teaches and conducts research. “A hundred miles northwest of me, towards cranberry country, some areas just got six inches of rain. That’s two Septembers’-worth of rain in a morning.”