With the calendar about to turn to September, there is always general concern in the ag sector about an early frost. The early frost being detrimental for crops that have yet to reach maturity. This is typically only of concern for crops that were planted later in the spring as shown by the featured chart. The chart presents the historical frequency of reaching 2400 growing degree days by a given end date and start date (read planting date) combination. The left panel shows the overall frequencies. The right panel shows the actual 2023 data along with historical scenarios to finish off the growing season. This plot would seem to indicate that we are in good shape with frequencies this year near 100% for planting dates up until about the third week of May. Of course, some crops may have a longer maturity than 2400 GDDs, so you are free to run this tool for your GDD threshold of interest and see what the probabilities look like. With regards to an early frost, there's nothing in the immediate term forecast out 10 days or so of concern. In fact, the opposite is of concern with major heat set to return for the Labor Day weekend.

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