I've been working on updating the garden records, one record is the FFO's that I gather each year. These records go back almost 15 years for some cultivars. There are patterns relating to FFO when keeping records of cultivars over a period of years. I took a look at the Heating Degree Days and Cooling Degree Days for the past 5 years of records on 4 cultivar's with different foliage types and bloom times to see if there was anything that could be seen using the degree day records. Thought I would post what I found for anyone who may be interested in seeing this info.
HDD stands for Heating Degree Days to calculate the heating degree days for a particular day, find the day's average temperature by adding the day's high and low temperatures and dividing by two. If the number is above 65, there are no heating degree days that day. If the number is less than 65, subtract it from 65 to find the number of heating degree days. (high 30 + low 10 = 40 divide by 2 = ave 20, 65 - 20 = 45 HDD units for that day)
CDD or Cooling Degree Days are the opposite of HDD. Calculated the same way, by finding the average of the high and low temperature for the day and subtracting 65 f, if the remaining number is above the base 65 these are the degree units for cooling to a temperature of 65 f. A average temperature of 65 would be zero HDD or CDD units.
I used the DD records for an area 15 miles south of me, there are none for my area (we are normally 5 -10 degrees cooler). The DD record dates were from Jan. 1st to the FFO date for each particular cultivar. The FFO's for the years were the first thing I noticed in my FFO records. In 2010 and 2012 the earlier FFO time was recorded for around 95% of the cultivar's in the garden. Some cultivars bloom at nearly the same day every year and others may have been planted the previous season. Here are the cultivars and their FFO, HDD and CDD numbers for the past 5 years...
Destined To See EVG, Ear/Mid
Year --2009------2010------2011------ 2012------ 2013
FFO ---7/13-------7/6---------7/14--------7/6----------7/9
HDD --4544------3757-------4701-------3920-------4467
CDD -----75---------196--------160----------151---------214
Night Embers SEV, Ear/Mid
Year - 2009-------2010-------2011--------2012-------2013
FFO - 7/12---------7/7---------7/13---------7/10-------7/13
HDD - 4542-------3757-------4701--------3923-------4467
CDD - --75------------214----------159----------165---------240
Primal Scream DOR, Mid/Late
Year - 2009-------2010-------2011-------2012-------2013
FFO - 7/22--------7/13--------7/18-------7/10--------7/14
HDD - 4551-------3757-------4701------- 3923-------4467
CDD --- 97-----------288----------180----------165----------252
Itsy Bitsy Spider DOR, Early
Year - 2009-------2010-------2011-------2012-------2013
FFO - 6/28--------6/24-------6/27--------6/23--------6/29
HDD - 4530--------3742------4701--------3911-------4467
CDD - --60------------130----------97------------88-----------107
(Sorry for all the dashes between numbers. The forum program kept squishing my numbers taking away the spacing.)
Curiosity led me to look at the HDD for each year from Jan 1 to Mar. 14 when I was working on this and see where this difficult 2014 winter placed. With more cold days to come between now and bloom season the FFO records for this year will be interesting to see!
1/1 - 3/14 HDD's
2009-- 3194
2010-- 2681
2011-- 3236
2012-- 2744
2013-- 2931
2014-- 3426
...just checked our HDD's from 1/1/14 to 3/22/14 (today) 3729 HDD's. Almost at the 3757 HDD total for 1/1 - July 2010. See what curiosity gets me, should I
or
