So what is your GDD - or growing degree day? Before you reach for a piece a paper, a pencil and a calculator to figure out what your number is, check out the OSU's Growing Degree Day website. This website does the 'math' or the calculations to determine your GDD for you. All you need is an Ohio zipcode. The website uses weather stations across Ohio to determine what the accumulations, and provides visitors their GDD and where they are in a biological calendar of certain plant blooms and insect activity. 

The weather this week has been amazingly warm and wonderful. However don't let it trick you into planting annuals and warm season vegetables prematurely.

Poison hemlock and wild parsnip are currently in a growth stage that makes them susceptible to several management options. Targeting this stage for control will prevent flowering and seed production.

Lesser Celandine (Ficaria verna (previously Ranunculus ficaria)) is now very evident in southern Ohio. Plants are in full bloom, or nearly so, meaning effective control options are becoming limited.

Earlier this week, I came across a large collection of soil "mining bees" while on a hike in a park in southwest Ohio. Surprisingly, the "colony" was located right on and along a park trail with numerous males making their low-level flights in search of females.

Organic mulch can provide wonderful benefits to landscape trees and shrubs as well as enhancing landscape aesthetics. Or it can slyly take the form of a horticultural horror cunningly robbing woody ornamentals of their vigor.

Periodical Cicadas (Magicicada spp.) take either 17 or 13 years to complete their development out-of-site in the soil. Brood X (10) of the 17-year periodical cicada is one of the largest based on geographical distribution. Cicadas of this Brood are poised to emerge this spring.

Nursery and greenhouse growers can once again apply for USDA CFAP 2 payments on beginning on April 5, 2021.

Earlier this week, I was participating on a Virtual Zoom presentation for Master Gardener Volunteers in Lucas County. This year's interns were treated to a Plant Pathology presentation by OSU's Plant and Pest Diagnostic Clinic's Program Director, Joy Pierzynski, Ph.D. While there were a lot of words that Joy shared with this new group of OSU volunteers, I picked one that I just love to hear. 

A quarantine is established to contain, or reduce the potential spread, of an identified pest. Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture (PDA) has expanded their spotted lanternfly (SLF) (Lycorma delicatula) quarantine to include 8 new counties. Those counties include: Cambria, Cameron, Franklin, Lackawanna, Montour, Pike, Wayne and Westmoreland. This brings up the total number of PA Counties under quarantine to 34. This is just over 1/2 of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.