Setting up growing degree days (GDDs)

Calculating growing degree days (GDDs) can be a useful tool for determining crop development and predicting pest and disease outbreaks. FarmQA will calculate daily and accumulated GDDs for your fields using data from FarmQA's weather service provider. Field specific GDD information can then be accessed from your FarmQA web app and from your scouting reports. Check out the rest of this article to learn more about GDD functionality in FarmQA. 

What you need to populate GDDs in your fields

Setting a metric for GDDs

Viewing your field's accumulated GDDs

What you need to populate GDDs in your fields

There are three things that need to be setup in your account for GDDs to be calculated for your fields: 

1. Setup AT LEAST ONE virtual weather station in your FarmQA account.
2. Assign planting dates to your fields.
3. Assign a metric for your GDD's.

From there, we will use the GDU base temp and the GDU max temp that are setup for the crops in your fields to calculate your daily GDD accumulation. These temperature values will be taken from the virtual weather station in your account. Accumulated GDDs will be shown in the field information sidebar for your fields. They will also be tracked as metric data that you can view from your Analytics page. 

Setting a metric for GDDs

• Log in to your FarmQA account from the web app if you aren't already.
• Click on Settings then go to the Organization tab. 
• Select the root level of your enterprise in your organization tree (the name at the top), and scroll to the bottom of the Details tab. 
• Assign metrics to your Daily GDU and Seasonal GDU values under the Weather Information section. You can either use an existing metric or you can create a new on by clicking on the New Metric button (pictured below). 

Viewing your field's accumulated GDDs

To view your GDDs from Scouting reports: 

• Log in to your FarmQA account if you aren't already.
• Locate a scouting report for a field from the Scouting page or from that field's field notes.
• Export the scouting report to PDF, and your GDD information will be viewable with the rest of the field's weather information at the top of the report (pictured below). 

To view your GDDs from Analytics:

• Log in to your FarmQA account if you aren't already.
• Click on the Analytics  icon. You can then view your GDD metric information from the        Report tab (top) or from the Metric explorer (bottom).

To view your GDDs from the Map tab: 

• Log in to your FarmQA account if you aren't already.
• In the Map tab, locate the field you want to view GDDs for. 
• Click on the field, then expand the Weather History  section in the slide-out field pane. 
• Your accumulated GDDs will be located at the bottom of the Weather History section        (pictured below). 

Please contact FarmQA Support with any further questions