I learned two things today.
First, I'll never be a textster and secondly, I learned "GDD" is shorthand for Growing Degree Days.
Intuitively, we know what GDD are and have worked our gardens using them without even thinking about it. When you start seeing buds on certain trees or birds arriving and bugs flying, you know it's time to plant certain veggies and flowers. Researchers have tracked and studied Growing Degree Days (GDD) for years and documented which plants and insects start emerging, growing, blooming etc. at what degree day accumulation levels. A farmer who wants to try a new variety of crop will look at the GDD to see approximately when to plant, how long to maturity in his neck of the woods and if there is typically enough time to reach maturity for that variety in his region. Likewise if you are looking to spray for the emergence of apple maggot or horned something creeping-crawly, you can look up how many GDD until they start hatching. This is how many people use GDD in their IPM programs to help minimize pesticide and herbicide use.
Cornell has a nice write up about this topic and links here. You can read about how its calculated and the variables involved.
Plants and insects follow nature, not the calendar. So should we - with a little help from our scientists. OMG! WAC!! NTC. (Oh My Goodness! What A Concept!! Now That's Cool. )
Non-Textstering Jean, signing out!
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