Growing, degree days?

In meteorological terms, we're a couple of days past Spring's midpoint of April 16. Astronomically, we've about two and one-half weeks to go until the May 5 midpoint. Looking our our windows, the latter seems to better represent Spring's plant phenology. Thinking about this caused us to go wander into the wilds of the internets and see what we could find about growing degree days.

how many growing degree days until we see marsh marigolds here?

Photo by J. Harrington

The basic concepts relating growing degree days [GDD] to plant development are nicely explained here. We've not been able to find a GDD-phenology source specific to Minnesota. (If you know of one, please provide a URL in the comments.) Thus far, the best we can do is this site and we're not sure how to readily read the map since what appears to be the legend doesn't appear on the custom map we selected for Minnesota. Perhaps if we had a graduate assistant to sort through all of the options we could produce something with more real world benefit. Scanning the graphics it appears that this Spring is running considerably cooler than normal [see: Degree-Day maps created daily using a 50° F. lower threshold:]. That confirms our "seat of the pants" impression. Before we fuss and fume too much more, we're best spend more time learning about USA-NPN's visualization tool.

We've lived through a major remodel of critical rooms (bath and kitchen) in what was once our home. It seemed as though the first 90% or so of the work was demolition, with things getting worse day by day. Then, suddenly, in the last three days of the project, all was fixed and well. Minnesota's Springs are most often like that kind of project. Instead of a pleasant, gradual warming, we get day after day of cooler than normal temperatures, then, suddenly, several 85 or 90 degree days in a row and Summer's arrived. Perhaps we're still being influenced by the mid-May walleye opener many, many years ago when we launched the boat on a pleasant Spring evening, tied it to the dock, and returned for the midnight opener several hours later to find 3" of snow covering the seats and boat bottom.

Budding Scholars

By April Halprin Wayland

Welcome, Flowers.

Write your name on a name tag.

Find a seat.

Raise your leaf if you've taken a class here before.

Let's go around the room.

Call out your colors.

I see someone's petal has fallen—

please pick it up and put it in your desk

where it belongs.

Sprinklers at recess,

fertilizer for lunch, 

and you may snack on the sun throughout the day.

Excuse me . . .

what's that in your mouth?

A bee?

Did you 

bring enough

for everyone?

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