Climate

June 1 is the meteorological start of summer, and I think we are all hoping for much warmer conditions than we have experienced lately. Temperatures in Ohio during May ran 2-4°F below average. This led to accumulated growing degree days since May 1 running 60-90 GDDs below normal. The other big weather story has been the wet conditions, especially for southern and eastern Ohio. Another widespread 1-2 inches this past week has those areas running much above normal for the past month (Figure 1).

Weather is almost always a challenge for agriculture, and  good management strategies for dealing with water, weeds, pests, diseases, and stress are all part of being climate-smart.