New Look to Growing Degree Website

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Have you visited the Ohio State University's Growing Degree Day (GDD) website this spring?  If you haven't, you are in for a treat!  The website has a new look, is very easy to navigate, and has an added feature that everyone will be using. 

Once on the home-page, you have an option of inputting any Ohio zipcode.  The date will always be the current date, although you can manipulate and use past dates in your search.  Once the zipcode has been added, website users click on "show me the calendar" and are taken to a short sequence of what is occuring with plant blooms (first bloom or full bloom) and insect activity as one contiguous list.  Users can also view the entire calendar from start to finish from this page. 

The new link called "summary" is a listing of a specific month and day and the GDDs from 2010 - 2016.  I always enjoyed comparing year to year, but this feature makes short work of pulling the summary data together.  With a simple click of a button, the website does the work and you will have the information at your fingertips.  For example, on May 15 in Toledo, Ohio, the GDD for the last six years is listed below:

2016:  316

2015:  350

2014:  315

2013:  344

2012:  568

2011:  275

2010:  461

So go forth and explore!  Check out the redesigned GDD website.  If you have been already using GDDs, contine to forge ahead, and give the "summary" tab a try.  If this is something that is new to you, jump right in, and become familar with calendar and how the information provided can be applied in your own landscape, a client's landscape, a garden or arboreta, or a nursery.  It is also a useful tool for those in the garden center, helping retail consumers with their seasonal questions.