What are growing degree days and how does it affect my lawn?
As you have probably seen (and felt!), this spring is off to a pretty slow start. Two different weeks in April produced accumulating snow, and the temperatures outside of those weeks haven’t been much better. As we close the chapter on April and look to May, one tool turf managers use for timing and comparisons is growing degree days.
Growing degree days are, generally speaking, the accumulation of heat throughout a period. If you are interested, visit http://www.gddtracker.net/ and enter your zip code for more information. When calculating growing degree days, we are currently using a base of 50. This is calculated by adding up all the degrees for each day since February 19 that exceed 50 degrees. See the table below showing the data for the past week or so for 2018 compared with 2017.
As of April 29, using a base of 50 degrees, we have a total of 457 GDD. If we look back to last year at the same time, we had a GDD total of 991, which is over two times more accumulated heat as of the same date! If you are wondering why very few trees and other planting material has not popped yet, there is your answer! There are still a few partly dormant lawns out there as well. A few homeowners have made the first cut this past weekend and I think with the warmer weather coming up in the first half of this week, we will see most lawns requiring the first cut. This slow spring shouldn’t have much of a long term affect on lawns, but we are missing out on a nice growing month to help repair any drought damage from last September and October.
Please don’t hesitate to call or email if you have any questions at anytime. We can be reached by emailing office@myturfllc.com or calling 616-813-3135.
“I Treat Your Turf Like It’s My Turf”