Pratt County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
These conditions suit cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — a starting list any specific site will trim or extend with its own soil, sun, and drainage.
Pratt County lies within the Wichita / South-Central Kansas (Arkansas River Lowlands) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Pratt County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Pratt 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 Pratt County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pratt County — the short answer
Pratt County, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 213 days between hard freezes, across 470K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 2
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~213
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 470K 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 6b is Pratt County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pratt County's 213-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Pratt County
Across a year, Pratt County accumulates about 3,997 growing degree days above 50°F, about 164 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 78 of Kansas’s 105 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 Pratt County
Across Pratt County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Blanket, Hayes, and Albion are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a fine sandy loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–7.0, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
68%
Hydric soils
2%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Pratt County
The USDA soil survey maps 86% of Pratt County as well drained — but another 14% drains differently: 7% somewhat excessively drained, 5% somewhat poorly drained.
Blanket is the most extensive named soil at 14% of mapped acres, then Hayes (12%) and Albion (8%).
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 Pratt County
Each reading below is measured for Pratt 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 Pratt County are well drained, in hydrologic group C — ground that drains quickly.
The upside is soil you can work early in spring and roots that never drown; the cost is that fast-draining ground dries out fast and leaches nutrients away before plants can use them.
Work in compost and mulch to hold moisture and feed, and water more often in short doses than deep and rarely.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Pratt County runs about pH 5.8–7.0, 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
MeasuredPratt County runs about 213 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredPratt County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
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 Pratt County is in
Pratt County spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Central Great Plains (87%) and Southwestern Tablelands (14%). Which one your land falls in changes what grows wild there and how the ground behaves, and a county-wide answer cannot tell you which.
What Grows in Pratt County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Pratt County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 213-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 Kansas profile.
Is it too late to plant in Pratt 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 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 2 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. A long window like this one runs successions deep into fall — and even its last weeks take quick greens and garlic.
Documented around Pratt County
- monarch butterfly665 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Pratt County
USGS estimates 230,722 lb of Glyphosate on Pratt County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (148,832 lb) and Metolachlor-s (139,142 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 Pratt County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Pratt County — 330 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
There's a meaningful federal record across Pratt 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 Pratt County
Closest first, across Pratt County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- TOM'S SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- CENTURY FUELS #620Underground Storage Tanks · 550 ft
- MARSH ENGINE SVC & SUPPLY INCBrownfields · 650 ft
- BOLEN OFFICE SUPPLY INCBrownfields · 650 ft
- WENRICH, TOMUnderground Storage Tanks · 700 ft
- THE PEOPLES BANKUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
- J & M WATER SERV INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- GATES, CARL R.Underground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- HALLIBURTON SERVICESUnderground Storage Tanks · 1300 ft
- FRISBIE, JERRY MUnderground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- WESTERN LIGHT & TELEPHONE CO.Underground Storage Tanks · 1600 ft
- EQUIPMENT DOCTORSBrownfields · 1700 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Pratt 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 Pratt County.
Total Sites
330
across Pratt County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
3 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Pratt County
Severity Distribution
across Pratt County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Pratt County, two things run higher than the national average across Pratt County — Nitrate (206 sites) and CAFO (6 sites). Knowing it is half the work — and it's nothing a thoughtful grower can't plan for.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Check your specific parcel in Pratt 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 Pratt County average
Your land is one point inside Pratt County
Everything above resolves to Pratt County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 470K 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 Pratt County Average
Pratt County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Pratt County
- ●One soil character for all of Pratt County
- ●Frost dates read at Pratt County's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 2
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pratt County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Pratt County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pratt County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pratt County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pratt County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pratt County average
How we know this about Pratt 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 Pratt County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Pratt County
When does frost risk typically end in Pratt County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pratt County typically lands around Apr 3, 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 Apr 24.
How long is the growing season in Pratt County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pratt County sees about 213 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 2, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 19, about 178 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pratt County?
The federal record around Pratt County is a meaningful one — 330 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (206), 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 Pratt County's scale — its 6b band and its 213-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pratt 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 Kansas's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Pratt County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Pratt County's own scale — its own ~213-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 330 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pratt County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pratt County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~213-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Pratt CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 330 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
- Pratt County's boundary and the 470,424 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~213-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Pratt County spans, Central Great Plains the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Pratt County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Pratt County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Kansas grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Kansas
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Pratt County — the ~213 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 Pratt County's 470,424 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 330 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 Pratt Countyread your own land →