40 Years of GDU Data: Our Gift to You!
After a long winter, I’m excited to be soon kicking off my 15th season of compiling and sharing weekly GDU and weather data. I know this information is of interest across all facets of agriculture because I have everyone from bankers to crop insurance reps to market analysts to farmers signing up for it. It is called Swenson’s Snapshot, and you can sign up below.
If you know me personally, you realize I’m an agronomic project guy. From pumpkins to weather, I love focusing on a subject and digging in. I’ve always wanted to put together a historical summary of season-long GDU data, and with the help of Kelsey Stumvoll, we accomplished that goal over the past months.
We built charts for 90+ locations across the tri-state showing FORTY YEARS of GDU data from 1981 to 2021. The “green” bar represents 50% of years. Why should farmers care? Because knowing your farm allows you to make wise decisions on maximizing your crop. It can inform your decisions regarding:
- Hybrid Selection as you utilize the chart to target correct hybrid maturities and reign in the desire to select products based solely on recent years’ experience.
- Yield by building maturity curves for your location to maximize the crop’s potential.
- Test Weight/Black Layer and recognize that pushing maturity is fun but isn’t always worth the gamble of a potential cool season.
- Dryer Setup and depending on infrastructure, whether pushing maturities a few days is viable and whether you can handle the possibility of wet corn.
- Farm Practices, including equipment size, tillage practices, and labor for planting and harvest, are affected by your planting and harvest window.
- Planting and Harvest Dates which are affected by soil and location. Can you typically plant in mid-April, or do you need to wait until early May?
Our handy historical chart will quickly become a valuable reference to compare growing seasons across the years.
We’re making the full set of locations available here as a service to you when you sign up for my Swenson Snapshot weekly email! All you need to do is sign up! Soon after, you’ll receive an email to view and download the 40 Year GDU Report for your area! If you cannot find your location within the group, send me an email. I’m happy to run a custom report for your farm.
For those that already receive my weekly email, don’t worry, I didn’t forget you! My 40 Year GDU Report should be sitting in your email ready for you to check out!
For the new folks: by subscribing to Swenson’s Snapshot you’ll see my weekly email (want to know exactly what you’ll get? See an example here!) where I chat about the weather, GDUs, and crop progress. It ends each year with the first frost, or on October 1 – whichever comes first.
Kelsey and I spent a lot of time on this project, and being agronomic geeks, we loved every minute of it. We hope you enjoy it!
