Chesapeake Bay Climate Adaptation Toolbox



Climate Smart Farming: Growing Degree Day Calculator

Developed By: Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Summary: Part of the Climate Smart Farming toolkit, the Growing Degree Day Calculator calculates and plots observed and predicted growing degree days for a given location during a growing season.

The Growing Degree Day (GDD) calculator measures seasonal heat accumulation, through GDD’s, in order to help agricultural producers predict important benchmarks for plant development as well as potential pest and disease threats. By providing their location, planting date, and the GDD base temperature for the crop of interest, users can calculate a season-to-date and seasonal outlook of cumulative growing degree days for their crop. Users may also choose to “enable targets” which allows them to view when they should reach a certain plant growth, based on their custom GDD. This tool generates a plot of cumulative GDD over time which includes the season to date, a 6-day forecast, and the first/last freezes in the season. Users can also compare GDD’s across locations through a “Summary” function which lists current and future GDD’s for selected locations. The tool is still being revised and users are encouraged to provide feedback to the developers. Having background knowledge of crop growth is useful for using this tool, but beginner users can utilize a series of video tutorials and explanations to become familiar with the features of the tool.

Get This Tool: http://climatesmartfarming.org/tools/csf-growing-degree-day-calculator/

Geographic Coverage

Tags

Cost

Skill Level