North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>]

This year we had a warm spring and summer.  Everything ripened earlier
than usual.  This is a pretty basic question... can the ripening of
fruit be predicted by cumulative "growing degree days"?  Let me know if
I'm correct on this.  Here are few ways I would use this information:
1.  If I keep track of my own fruit ripening times each year in growing
degree days (data available at a number of websites), then I should be
able to predict how late or early a crop will be in years when the
weather is unusually cold or hot.
2.  If I wanted to predict how an uncommon plant, like pawpaw, would do
in my own backyard, I would need to find out the growing degree days
required to fully ripen the fruit.  Is that a good assumption?
3.  If I have a microclimate, like a courtyard, that is much warmer than
the rest of my yard, I would be able to predict what fruits would ripen
there that would not ripen in the rest of my yard.
Would I be able to use the growing degree days model in these ways?

In Seattle this year, we had 2050 growing degree days (50-86F).  That
was hot for us, but pretty wimpy compared to the rest of the country.
-Mark Lee, Seattle