How far Behind Is The Growing Season?

The growing season is starting off slower than last year. The soil temperatures have been slow to recover after the very cold winter and early spring.

Agriculture experts use GROWING DEGREE DAYS as a measure of GROWTH RATE in plants and insects. By tracking the average temperature and plugging it into a simple equation HERE, a measure of whether or not the growing season is ahead/behind can be found. Notice that this year's growing season (through May 7th) is very similar to 2011 but way behind last year. Incidentally, the start of the 2010 and 2012 growing season was the earliest in 140+ years of northern Ohio record keeping using the GDD measure. To put this another way, last year's (2013) growing season was at this year's level (151) more than a week ahead of this year.  In the record setting warm spring of 2012, the growing season was at this year's level on MARCH 21st!

Each plant, tree and insect has its own thresh hold depending on the specific location. Just plug in your ZIP CODE. By checking a plant or insect's GROWING DEGREE DAY, you can determine when it will first bloom or hatch.  Here is brief summary of the list for Medina, Ohio. You can see what has bloomed and what will bloom in the near future.