Good morning
There seems to be a study starting at NC State University on people keeping records about first bloom. Originally I had responded and directed her to our FaceBook page, DaffSeek which records season of bloom and of course this forum which often has posts of first blooms. I have expressed that first bloom is also zonal too.
It appears as though this study may be more detailed than a general interest in early blooming daffodils. So, I thought it might be something others have better kept records that perhaps record soil and atmospheric temperatures and other details concerning very early blooming Daffodils.
Here is her two messages to see if anyone can help her:
First contact message:
Hello,
I was wondering if you keep records (or might know an organization who does) about the first bloom date for daffodils and crocus every Spring. Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Kate
Clarification message:
Hi Frank,
Thanks so much for the information! Very interesting. I should have been more specific – colleagues of mine at NC State are doing research to compare annual dates of bloom to temperature data to study the start of spring, and I wondered if you kept detailed records for the actual date of bloom every year for a specific region or area. Do you have information that specific?
Thanks again!
Kate
I seem to recall that the Chicago Botanical Gardens has keep records of the same varieties of daffodils, planted in the same beds and the dates that they bloomed over a long period of years. With daffodils bloom time in spring is also affected by the amount and timing of the first fall rains and the amounts of rainfall in this region. Just as Red Spider Lilies, Oxbloods, Rain lilies are all affected by the timing of the first rains in August and Sept. They can also look up # of Chilling Hours for fruit trees as these records are often kept for years for the different regions as different varieties of fruit trees require different hours of chilling before they will break out of dormancy. etweather.tamu.edu/chill/ Soil temperature also will affect the growth and timing of daffodil blooms. The amount mulch or shade on the soil where daffodils grow also affect the timing of the first blooms.
The better way to determine the beginning of spring is to look at first freeze dates and then also last freeze dates. Link above is for my region of Texas but they only post the last 20 years or so of this data. They also post rainfall records for that weather station going back many decades. We only had 198 hours below freezing for the whole winter this year. (They only count chilling hours for fruit trees as Oct.1 till Feb. 29) This morning there are many airports here in East Texas that are reporting temperatures at or just below freezing at 5 AM. So spring is going to get nipped for a lot of plants. It has been over 30 years since I have seen 6” of snow in April here at my house. Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas