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Mining plant phenology records from Kanazawa, Japan in the 1807–1838 Kakuson Diary

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Abstract

Mining the various records of plant phenology before the era of modern weather observations is an important but challenging task. We mined descriptions of plant phenology in Kanazawa, Japan, during the first half of the nineteenth century in the Kakuson Diary. We retrieved records of full bloom of 28 plant species, appearance of 31 seasonal foods, and peak leaf colouring. In particular, we found more than 10 years of records of plum, peach, cherry blossoms, udo, and bamboo shoots in spring; watermelon in summer; and persimmon, chestnut, and peak leaf colouring in autumn. The records suggest that spring phenology during 1807 to 1838 was later and autumn phenology was earlier than now. Despite spatio-temporal uncertainty in records in old diaries, we need to mine records of plant phenology in more old diaries and publish them in English.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for Prof. Kakuson Kaneko for his invaluable records. We are also grateful to Mr. Yoshio Kawa and the Ishikawa Prefecture Library Association for compilation of the diary into printed volumes. We also thank the editor and two reviewers for their constructive comments. This study was supported by KAKENHI grants (JSPS 21H05178 and 22H05244) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for Global Change, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokohama, Japan

    Nagai Shin & Yoshikazu Sasai

  2. River Basin Research Center, Gifu University, Gifu, Japan

    Nagai Shin & Taku M. Saitoh

  3. Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    Ayumi Kotani

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  1. Nagai Shin
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  2. Yoshikazu Sasai
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  3. Ayumi Kotani
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  4. Taku M. Saitoh
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Correspondence to Nagai Shin.

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Shin, N., Sasai, Y., Kotani, A. et al. Mining plant phenology records from Kanazawa, Japan in the 1807–1838 Kakuson Diary. Int J Biometeorol 68, 125–131 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02576-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00484-023-02576-3

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