Wright County, in Iowa, sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a — enough range to grow cool-season vegetables, hardy fruit, and warm-season crops that mature before the first hard frost.
The conditions favor cabbage, cranberry, lavender, and collard greens, among others — though every individual site edits that list with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Wright County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Wright County, so your frost dates and drainage aren't the county average. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Wright County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Wright County — the short answer
Wright County, Iowa: USDA zone 5a, about 179 days between hard freezes, across 371K acres.
- USDA zone
- 5a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 18
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 14
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~179
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 371K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are county 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 5a is Wright County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Wright County's 179-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Wright County
Across a year, Wright County accumulates about 2,568 growing degree days above 50°F, about 176 fewer than the middle Iowa county — ahead of 25 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Degree days are the heat a crop actually gets to work with — more of them is more room to ripen a long-season crop before the freeze closes the window.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Wright County
Across Wright County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Canisteo, Nicollet, and Webster are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.2–7.5, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
37%
Hydric soils
53%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Wright County
The USDA soil survey maps 48% of Wright County as poorly drained — but another 51% drains differently: 20% somewhat poorly drained, 15% moderately well drained.
Canisteo is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Nicollet (12%) and Webster (11%).
Which of them your own lot sits on is a parcel question, not a county one. Check your address for the survey at your boundary.
What this means for growing in Wright County
Each reading below is measured for Wright County itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Wright County are poorly drained, in hydrologic group C/D — ground that sheds water slowly.
Beds can stay saturated for days after heavy rain, and the roots of most vegetables, berries, and fruit trees suffocate or rot in soil that never drains.
Raised beds or mounded rows lift roots above the wet zone; choose water-tolerant crops for the lowest spots.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Wright County runs about pH 6.2–7.5, close to neutral.
This is the range most vegetables prefer — one correction you probably do not have to make, which is genuinely good news for a new bed.
Keep it there with compost rather than lime or sulfur, and only amend if your own soil test says otherwise.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredWright County runs about 179 days between hard freezes — a moderate growing season.
There is room for the full run of cool-season crops plus a warm-season main crop, but the calendar is tight enough that a late spring or early fall frost still decides how much finishes.
Time warm-season transplants to your last hard freeze, and a few weeks of season extension turns a near-miss harvest into a sure one.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredWright County sits in USDA hardiness zone 5a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Wright County is in
Wright County sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Wright County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Wright County's own USDA zone 5a and its own 179-day season between hard freezes, using the same matching engine that runs a full parcel report. These cleared both. Sun, soil pH and drainage vary lot by lot — those are the parcel questions below. Each card opens that plant's Iowa profile.
Is it too late to plant in Wright County?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 21; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 18 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 14 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Late in the year the fall bench takes over — quick greens, radishes, and garlic that repays you next summer.
Documented around Wright County
- monarch butterfly20 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Wright County
USGS estimates 296,748 lb of Glyphosate on Wright County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acetochlor (169,782 lb) and Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (114,638 lb).
Farmland across the whole county, not any one lot. Check your address for the site-by-site record.
Safe to Grow Here?
What the federal record shows across Wright County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Wright County — 235 documented sites across 5 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Wright County — worth a look before you plant food, not a reason to hold back from growing. Proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. A soil test before new food beds is the sensible precaution here, and the map shows exactly which sites sit where, so you can see what's actually near you.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Wright County
Closest first, across Wright County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TAYLOR QUIK PIKUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- ALBERT CITY PRONTOUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- CHEROKEE MOBILE HOME PARKUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- CAMP DODGE TRAINING SITEUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- FORMER BURNS BROS. TRAVEL STOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- KWIK STAR #708Underground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- FORT DES MOINESUnderground Storage Tanks · 100 ft
- Not KnownUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- CASEY''S GENERAL STORE 3052Underground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- CITY OF CLARIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- COUNTY ENGINEER''S SHOPUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- DAHLEN TRANSPORTUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Wright County's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Wright County.
Total Sites
235
across Wright County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Wright County
Severity Distribution
across Wright County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Wright County, Underground Storage Tanks runs higher than the national average — 146 sites across Wright County. It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Underground Storage Tanks: Underground storage tanks are the single most common source of soil contamination near homes and gardens.
Use raised beds with imported soil — this eliminates the primary soil-contact pathway.
Check your specific parcel in Wright County
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wright County average
Your land is one point inside Wright County
Everything above resolves to Wright County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 371K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at county scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better county average.
Your Lot vs the Wright County Average
Wright County Average
- ●USDA Zones 5a, averaged across Wright County
- ●One soil character for all of Wright County
- ●Frost dates read at Wright County's scale: Apr 18 to Oct 14
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Wright County's 5a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Wright County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Wright County, Iowa — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Wright County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Wright County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Wright County average
How we know this about Wright County
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at county grain; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at this county’s own record where one resolves, and the labelled statewide window where none does; soils from the USDA NRCS SSURGO survey, area-weighted across the county’s own map units; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination and pesticide records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Where Wright County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Wright County
When does frost risk typically end in Wright County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Wright County typically lands around Apr 18, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about May 9.
How long is the growing season in Wright County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Wright County sees about 179 frost-free days — roughly Apr 18 through Oct 14, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer May 9 to Sep 30, about 144 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Wright County?
The federal record around Wright County is a meaningful one — 235 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (146), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
Everything above is measured at Wright County's scale — its 5a band and its 179-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Wright County's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
Will It Grow Here?
Zone fit is the first question — each answer below reads Iowa's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Wright County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Wright County's own scale — its own ~179-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 235 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Wright County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 5aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Wright County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~179-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Wright CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 235 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record under a tenth of a mile outFederal environmental registers
- Wright County's boundary and the 371,463 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 5a and a ~179-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Wright County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Wright County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Wright County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Iowa grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Iowa
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Wright County — the ~179 days above is one reading at its centre; the 12 towns below each carry their owntowns in this county →
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Wright County's 371,463 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 235 documented sites actually reaches your soil — that needs your address, the wind, and the groundwater directionhow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — none of it survives being averaged over Wright Countyread your own land →