New Plant Hardiness Zone, Growing Degree Day, and Heat Zone Maps

Nov 03, 2022

Specialty crop growers and their workers, schedules, expenses, incomes, and crops are impacted by air and soil temperatures on and near their farms around the clock, even when production is suspended for the season. Temperatures never rest in influencing a long list of soil, crop, production, and cost-revenue variables. This fact explains why so much time, effort, and money are spent measuring, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting temperature data in ways useful to growers and others.

Two new resources outlined below will interest fruit, vegetable, and other growers.

The USDA-ARS manages information available at https://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/pages/view-maps.

The page includes updated maps of plant hardiness zones available at high resolution (e.g., see the images below and scale bars). Maps can be downloaded, if needed. Plant hardiness zones affect cash and cover crop selection and performance, overall seasonal scheduling, and other variables.

The USDA and U.S. Forest Service manage the large amount of information

The USDA and U.S. Forest Service manage the large amount of information and number of maps available at https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/9ee0cc0a070c409cbde0e3a1d87a487c. Pages and maps include descriptions of current and projected growing degree days, plant hardiness zones, and heat zones. Also, links to other pages with additional information are available. The current (top) and projected (bottom) heat zone maps below are interesting in what they could signal about potential long-term shifts in crop selection and scheduling, farm worker conditions, the use of plastic mulches and low and high tunnels and related technologies, biology (e.g., pests, diseases, weeds, beneficials), soil nutrient cycling, and more. Still, farmers appreciate that even small, more incremental changes in the short-term can be meaningful.

maps

Source : osu.edu

Video: Cheapest States to Buy Farmland in America

The United States has more than 895 million acres of farmland, which includes all rural land tied to farming operations, from highly fertile Midwest cornfields to vast grazing ranges in the West, as well as the undeveloped rural land, which is often sold as ranches, homesteads, or uncultivated lots. Nowadays investing in rural land is very lucrative even billionaires like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett have bought up thousands of acres of farmland across America. In contrast to investors, agricultural companies, and business moguls, some buy farmland for their own requisites, like starting a small farmstead, creating a cottage, and becoming self-resilient. In this video we have ranked the top cheapest states to buy farmland according to the per-acre land value, which is accumulated from the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA’s per-acre land values come from an annual survey, which is cross-checked with actual sales data, appraisals, and market trends to ensure accuracy. So here are The top Cheapest States to Buy Farmland.