Just got my Davis Vantage Vue installed and plan to order the 6520 data logger for my Mac so that I can track heating degree days for apple tree pest management. For organic management I will need to track for a variety of base temperatures.
What provisions does Weather Display have for tabulating heating degree days?
In some cases IPM requires that tabulation starts after a given event, such as capture of the first male codling moth - is it possible to have the s/w manually start tabulating heating degree days from a specific date?
WD does show the HDD (and CDD) for each day of the month (see under view, av/ext, noaa style report)
you can set the heating degree days offset (default is 18.3C)
I do not have provision currently for your second request
Thanks Brian! Tabulating heating degree days from one base will cover one aspect of pest management; for other types of pests, perhaps I can use a spreadsheet to tabulate from a second HDD base and from specific events (like the codling moth) since I couldn’t justify buying the Vantage Pro and necessary IPM sensors and software from Davis.
I have an urban orchard on a tiny city lot with 11 apple trees (espalier, columnar and urban - all varieties that are space efficient). Here in Ohio, pretty much every type of bug and bacteria try to attack the apple trees, which surprised me when I first started planting fruit trees, given that we have long and harsh winters. I have covered some of the bases by selecting disease resistant trees, but other pests and diseases I want to treat with organic methods. It’s a challenge, and I’m modeling my approach after Michael Phillips, author of The Apple Grower, and also an organic orchardist in Maine.
Attached is an article from Ohio State University about calculating Growing Degree Days (GDD) using only one base temperature (50 degrees F). I have the Vantage View with 6520 data logger up and running with data being sent to Wunderground.
Does Weather Display have a mechanism to calculate and tabulate accumulations of GDD, either internally or by some other mechanism, like exporting to a spreadsheet or report?
WD does calculate the GDD via that base (and you can change the base)
you can set WD to create custom log files, and using custom tags, put what ever your like that logfile (e.g the %gddmonth%…Growing degrees days, month to date. from the tagslist.txt file (and put in commas and name it a csv logfile and set now often that file updates…see under setup, logfile setup)
