Our Data Sources

Every data point traces to a named federal, state, or public source. Where we estimate, we label it as an estimate — no black boxes.

Data Transparency

We query federal and public data sources at runtime for your land — no stale snapshots, no proprietary estimates. Below is the complete inventory of what we use, who publishes it, and where you can verify it yourself.

Federal Agencies

14

Direct API queries

State Registries

51

50 states + DC

Plant Species

1,086

107 columns each

Data Sources

25+

All runtime-queried

Soil

USDA NRCS SSURGO

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Soil map unit polygons and 34+ tabular properties (pH, drainage, texture, organic matter, hydraulic conductivity) queried at runtime for your parcel. 1:24,000 scale.

Flood & Water

FEMA National Flood Hazard Layer

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Flood zone classification, regulatory floodway status, and base flood elevation. Queried on-demand via NFHL MapServer API.

USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD)

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Surface water features including rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds. Used for distance-to-water calculations.

USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD)

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

HUC-12 subwatershed identification via spatial join from parcel centroid.

USFWS National Wetlands Inventory

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

Wetland and deepwater habitat classification using the Cowardin system. Overlap detection and proximity analysis.

EPA ATTAINS

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

CWA Section 303(d) impaired waters. Nearest impaired waterbody distance for irrigation water quality context.

Solar & Light

USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP)

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Bare-earth elevation for slope and aspect, plus LiDAR-classified building footprints where 3DEP LiDAR has been flown. A seamless national elevation floor covers parcels without LiDAR.

NTSG / University of Montana NAIP Canopy Height Model

Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group, University of Montana

A 0.6-meter leaf-on canopy-height model built from summer NAIP aerial imagery. Modelled by a neural network — the summer foliage height that actually shades a growing bed.

Meta AI / WRI Canopy Height Model v2

Meta AI & World Resources Institute (CC BY 4.0)

A 1-meter global canopy-height model, used to fill gaps in NAIP-CHM coverage.

pvlib Solar Position Library

Open-source (BSD 3-Clause)

Solar altitude and azimuth. Sun positions for 8 representative days across the year, hourly from sunrise to sunset.

Konarska et al. (2013)

Peer-reviewed — Theoretical and Applied Climatology

Measured seasonal canopy transmissivity — how much direct sun passes through leaf-on versus bare-branch canopy — so shade reads season by season.

NREL National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB)

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Modelled solar irradiance, used as the deep last-resort fallback for parcels where no scene can be built. Named honestly as a fallback, never as the primary read.

NEON Airborne Observation Platform

National Ecological Observatory Network (NSF)

Airborne-LiDAR canopy heights at 8 US sites, used to independently validate the canopy model to within about 3 meters of height.

Climate & Season

PRISM Climate Group Climate Normals (1991–2020)

PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University

Temperature, precipitation, and atmospheric moisture at ~800m resolution. Basis for growing degree days, chill hours, and precipitation assessment.

NOAA Climate Normals

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

Station-based climate variables for 1991–2020: frost dates, growing season length, heat stress days, wind speed, and relative humidity.

USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Hardiness zone classification from 30-year minimum temperature normals (2023 revision). Primary gate constraint for perennial plant survival.

NOAA RCC Applied Climate Information System (ACIS)

NOAA Regional Climate Centers

Interpolated climate normals on ~800m grid. Days above 90 degrees F (heat stress) and heavy precipitation events.

Contamination & Environmental Risk

EPA Facility Registry Service — Superfund

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Superfund/CERCLIS/Brownfield sites within 2km. NPL severity ranking and proximity assessment.

EPA Underground Storage Tanks (UST)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Petroleum storage tank registration records within 1km. Open/closed facility status tracking.

EPA Toxics Release Inventory (TRI)

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Industrial chemical release data within 10km. Self-reported under EPCRA Section 313. Includes downwind classification.

EPA Annual Air Quality Index by County

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

County-level annual air quality statistics from monitoring stations. Median AQI and day-category counts.

USDA NASS Cropland Data Layer (CDL)

USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS)

Historic orchard detection via 6-year satellite imagery scan (2008–2023). Indicates historical probability of pesticide residue.

Conservation & Land Context

USGS Protected Areas Database (PAD-US)

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Gap Analysis Project

National inventory of protected areas. GAP status, designation type, managing agency, and grower compatibility assessment.

USDA NRCS Conservation Easements

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Easement boundaries for ACEP-ALE, WRP, GRP, and EWPP-FPE programs. Overlap detection and program identification.

EPA Level III Ecoregions

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Ecological context classification for the parcel location.

Parcels & Property

State Parcel Registries (51 entries)

State GIS offices, county assessors, regional planning agencies

Parcel boundaries and assessment attributes for all 50 states + DC. 296 county sub-providers. 30 land use code lookup tables.

U.S. Census Bureau TIGER/Line

U.S. Census Bureau

County/municipality boundary resolution for sub-state provider routing. Road proximity analysis via Transportation MapServer.

OpenStreetMap contributors

OpenStreetMap contributors

Primary address geocoder with parcel-level accuracy, via Nominatim. ODbL 1.0 license.

Census Bureau Geocoder

U.S. Census Bureau

Fallback forward geocoding and reverse geocoding for city/county/ZIP enrichment.

USGS / MRLC National Land Cover Database (NLCD)

USGS / MRLC

National Land Cover Database at 30m resolution. Impervious surface percentage and land cover classification.

USGS EPQS

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Multi-point elevation sampling from 3DEP best-available DEM. National coverage.

Plant Intelligence

Growable Ground Plant Database

Growable Ground LLC

1,086 species across 107 columns. Compiled from USDA PLANTS Database, peer-reviewed horticultural literature, and expert-validated gap fills with full attribution.

USDA PLANTS Database

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)

Native status, growth habit, bloom period, shade/drought tolerance, and 44 characteristic fields per species.

USDA APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ)

USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

Federal and state regulatory pest zones that may affect plant sourcing and nursery stock transport.

Data Integrity Promise

Runtime Queries

Every report queries live federal APIs for your land. No cached databases, no stale snapshots.

Verifiable Sources

Every data point links to its original source. Click any link above to verify the data yourself.

No Black Boxes

Our scoring methodology is published. We show our work so you can trust the results.

Full Citation

Cite this dataset

Kirchick, M. (2026). Growable Ground Plant Database [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21435643

Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21435643

For academic and compliance use

Data sources: USDA NRCS SSURGO (Soil Data Access WFS + REST API), FEMA NFHL (MapServer API), USGS 3DEP LiDAR (EPT via AWS S3 + PDAL), USGS 3DEP DEM (Elevation Point Query Service), USGS NLCD (WCS 2.0.1 + WCS 1.0.0 Tree Canopy Cover), USGS NHD (MapServer API), USGS WBD (MapServer API), USGS PAD-US 4.0 (FeatureServer API), EPA FRS (Superfund/UST/TRI via MapServer API), EPA ATTAINS (MapServer API), EPA EnviroFacts TRI (REST API), EPA AQI (annual county data), EPA Level III Ecoregions, NOAA NCEI U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020, NOAA/ACIS gridded climate normals, PRISM Climate Group Oregon State University (30-year normals), USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, USDA PLANTS Database (PlantProfile + PlantCharacteristics APIs), USDA NASS CropScape CDL, USDA APHIS PPQ pest quarantine zones, USDA NRCS conservation easements, NAIP-CHM canopy-height model (NTSG / University of Montana, MIT), Meta/WRI Canopy Height Model v2 (CC BY 4.0), Konarska et al. (2013) seasonal canopy transmissivity, NEON airborne-LiDAR CHM (validation), NREL National Solar Radiation Database (NSRDB PSM v3, deep fallback), JRC PVGIS 5.3, USFWS NWI (MapServer API), U.S. Census Bureau TIGERweb (Transportation + Boundaries MapServer), U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder (forward + reverse), OpenStreetMap Nominatim (ODbL), OpenStreetMap buildings via Overpass API (ODbL), pvlib Solar Position Library (BSD 3-Clause), State parcel registries (51 entries, 621+ county sub-providers, 30 USE_CODE LUTs).

Planning-level use only. Not for regulatory or site-specific decisions. Full source documentation maintained in DATA_ATTRIBUTION_FULL.md.

© OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0) for geocoding and building data. PRISM Climate Group data created through public research funding.

See what the data says about your land

Enter any US address. We score your land against all 25+ of these data sources and translate what they mean for what will grow.

Analyze Your Land
USDA NRCS SSURGOFEMA National Flood Hazard LayerUSGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP)EPA Facility Registry ServiceNOAA Climate NormalsUSFWS National Wetlands InventoryU.S. Census Bureau TIGER/LineNRELOpenStreetMap