This past week, heat unit accumulation per day averaged 12 at Lewiston-Woodville and 14 at Whiteville. The following graphs show two things. First, there is a 10-year average and some extreme years relative to heat unit accumulation over the cropping cycle. Right now we are below that 10-year average (about 15 at Lewiston-Woodville.) The second graph shows how, once we get to late September, we can encounter periodic dips in temperature below 50 F for a couple of days. This is why we often fail to increase pod maturation once we get a weather pattern like this. I used to include images of Bailey pod blasted from mid-September through mid-October (correlating with graph 2) in the production guide. Maturity did not change over a 4-week period for that variety in that particular fall.

Ten Year Average Heat Unit Accumulation at Lewiston-Woodville