BBCH

Content:

What means the agricultural term "BBCH"?

HOW DO YOU DETERMINE THE  stages OF DEVELOPMENT?

FOR WHICH PLANTS ARE THERE BBCH CODES?

The abbreviation BBCH officially stands for the german institution Biologische Bundesanstalt für Land- und Forstwirtschaft.

Farmers use the BBCH scale to determine the morphological development stage of a plant. This is important for determining the optimal timing of fertilization and crop protection measures.

Synonyms: BBCH codes, BBCH scale, winter wheat development stage, seed/cereal development stage, morphological development stages.

How to identify the stage of development?

Example winter barley: First, plants are taken from the trial field and the individual plants are separated from each other. This is easier to do in moist soils than in dry ones. The decisive factor in identifying the stage of growth is to concentrate on the main shoot.  For this purpose, the main shoot is detached and cut open to determine certain plant traits. In BBCH code stages, "macro stages" are recorded in a scale, which are additionally differentiated into "micro stages".

Example:

0: Germination / Sprouting

1: Leaf development (main sprout)

2: Formation of side sprouts / sprouting

…

8: Fruit and seed, mature

9: Die-off or occurrence of vegetation dormancy

For which crops are there BBCH codes?

There are BBCH scales for cereals and many other crops (e.g. beans, vegetables, potatoes, pome and stone fruits and many others).