Hourly soil GDDs and checking for imbibitional chilling and cold injury

Kevin Ganoe, Area Field Crop Specialist
Central New York Dairy and Field Crops

May 18, 2020

If you are curious about whether there were temperatures low enough to cause imbibitional chilling and cold injury in your area you might want to go to the links provided below.

We are unlikely to plant any year that we don't have soil temps drop down below 50 degree F for part of the time seed is in the ground.  The question is were temperatures low enough and for a prolonged enough time that there was some kind of injury to the seed to prevent emergence or cause poor germination? If there was to be injury, and that is a big if, you would think it might be this year given the cold temperatures we had. My inclination is that with modern hybrids that chance is low but that doesn't mean we should be prepared and checking in on those earlier planted fields

I have graphed out the hourly 2 inch soil temperature data from April 26 thru May 13 for 13 area NYS MESONET sites. What this allows you to see is how the soil temperature cycled day and night and through that time period.

Note in the graph that the x axis with the days is located right at 50 degrees.  If temperatures go below that level you would expect little to no growth and the closer the temps get to 40 or less the greater the chance for injury.

By looking at those graphs you can see some locations like Schuylerville once we hit May 1 were consistently above 50 degrees F.  Some locations like Sherburne and Sprakers actually had wide swings within a day and some sites like Brookfield and Morrisville had some sustained low temperatures especially May 9 and 10.  Those conditions provide the chance for some injury if we are to see it.

If you are looking for good references on Imbibitional Chilling and Cold Injury then I think those below are excellent:

Corny News Network, Emergence Failure of Corn, Updated April 2020 R.L. (Bob) Nielsen Agronomy Dept., Purdue University https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/EmergenceFailure.html

Also: Corny News Network, Cold Soils & Risk of Imbibitional Chilling Injury in Corn, April 16 R.L. (Bob) Nielsen Agronomy Dept., Purdue University https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/EmergenceFailure.html

Integrated Crop Management, Imbibitional chilling or cold injury, April 29, 2019, Dr. Mark Licht, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. https://crops.extension.iastate.edu/blog/mark-licht/imbibitional-chilling-or-cold-injury

Do Modern Corn Hybrids Still Exhibit Imbibitional Chilling Injury? What's Cropping Up? Blog.  June 6, 2014, Bill Cox, Cornell Univ. Extension. http://blogs.cornell.edu/whatscroppingup/2014/06/06/do-modern-corn-hybrids-still-exhibit-imbibitional-chilling-injury/




Ballston Spa (pdf; 461KB)


Sprakers (pdf; 462KB)


Sherburne (pdf; 461KB)


Schuylerville (pdf; 461KB)


Oppenheim (pdf; 460KB)


Morrisville (pdf; 461KB)


Laurens (pdf; 456KB)


Johnstown (pdf; 460KB)


Herkimer (pdf; 461KB)


Cold Brook (pdf; 430KB)


Cobleskill (pdf; 463KB)


Brookfield (pdf; 461KB)


Springfield (pdf; 462KB)


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