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Watermelon [Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) & Nakai] is widely grown on plastic mulches in the southeast United States, but responses of plants to plastic mulch color are not well understood. The objectives of this study were to determine the effects of colored plastic mulches and changes in root zone temperature (RZT) on fruit yield of watermelon fruit. The mulches (152 cm wide) evaluated were: black, blue, gray, red, silver (metallic), and white. During the first weeks after transplanting, canopy development was more rapid on black, blue, and red than silver and white mulches. As the season progressed and temperatures increased, differences in canopy development among mulch treatments tended to decrease. Watermelon plant growth benefited from soil warming using plastic film mulches, mainly blue, black, and red. There were no differences in fruit yield among different colored mulches, indicating that under the temperature conditions of the present study, the RZTs during fruiting were within optimal range for watermelon which is estimated to be 28.3°C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We modeled soil temperatures at 50-cm depth, using 1951–2000 air temperature and precipitation data from 194 National Weather Service stations in Wisconsin and Michigan. The accuracy and bias of the physical model used in this study were validated by comparing its output data to 22,401 actual soil temperature readings taken from sandy soils at thirty-nine forested sites throughout northern Michigan; the model was shown to have almost no temperature bias. Although mean annual air temperatures across the region show no strong spatial or temporal trends over the fifty-year period, at many sites, especially in Wisconsin, wintertime air temperatures have been increasing slightly in recent years. Conversely, mean annual soil temperatures have been decreasing at most sites in the region, some by more than 0.5°C. Likewise, wintertime soil temperatures are also decreasing, especially at sites downwind from the Great Lakes—many of which are in snowbelt locations. Increasing wintertime air temperatures over the past fifty years coincide with (and probably have led to) more variable and thinner snowpacks, lessening their insulating impact and contributing to decreasing wintertime soil temperatures that our model show are occurring in the eastern and northern parts of the region. These findings illustrate the complex response of natural systems to slow atmospheric warming, and draw attention to the potential changes that are occurring in growing season characteristics, phenology, and spring runoff characteristics in the Great Lakes region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]