Rice County, in Kansas, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
Among the crops suited to this profile: cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens. The site-level story — soil, sun, drainage — decides the rest.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Rice County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Rice 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 Rice County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Rice County — the short answer
Rice County, Kansas: USDA zone 6b, about 211 days between hard freezes, across 465K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 4
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 1
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~211
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 465K 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 Rice County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Rice County's 211-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Rice County
Across a year, Rice County accumulates about 3,987 growing degree days above 50°F, about 154 more than the middle Kansas county — ahead of 77 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 Rice County
Across Rice County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Crete, Geary, and Smolan are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally well drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.7–6.4, moderately acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Well drained
Prime farmland
68%
Hydric soils
1%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Rice County
The USDA soil survey maps 40% of Rice County as well drained — but another 60% drains differently: 38% moderately well drained, 18% somewhat poorly drained.
Crete is the most extensive named soil at 22% of mapped acres, then Geary (7%) and Smolan (5%).
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 Rice County
Each reading below is measured for Rice 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 Rice 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 Rice County runs about pH 5.7–6.4, 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
MeasuredRice County runs about 211 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
MeasuredRice 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 Rice County is in
Rice County sits in the Central Great Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Rice County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Rice County's own USDA zone 6b and its own 211-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 Rice County?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 7; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 4 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 1 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Rice County
- monarch butterfly37 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Rice County
USGS estimates 228,258 lb of Glyphosate on Rice County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (81,682 lb) and Atrazine (61,969 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 Rice County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Rice County — 378 documented sites across 7 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed). Sites tracked in EPA's Superfund program — from assessment-stage CERCLIS entries to confirmed National Priorities List cleanup sites.
There's a meaningful federal record across Rice 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 Rice County
Closest first, across Rice County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- YESWAY #1115Underground Storage Tanks · 75 ft
- TAYLOR PETROLEUMUnderground Storage Tanks · 200 ft
- MARKS AUTO REPAIRBrownfields · 200 ft
- LYONS AUTO SUPPLY INCBrownfields · 250 ft
- LYONS RAILYARDUnderground Storage Tanks · 250 ft
- LYONS AUTO SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 350 ft
- CASEY'S GENERAL STORE - #1890Underground Storage Tanks · 500 ft
- YOUNG MTR CO INCUnderground Storage Tanks · 600 ft
- JONES OIL COBrownfields · 850 ft
- LYONS SERVICE CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 850 ft
- KILGORE WARDS AUTO SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 1100 ft
- JONES OIL COUnderground Storage Tanks · 1200 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Rice 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 Rice County.
Total Sites
378
across Rice County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Severity Distribution
across Rice County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Rice County, two things run higher than the national average across Rice County — CAFO (9 sites) and Nitrate (262 sites). That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
CAFO: CAFOs pose a different contamination profile than chemical sources.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Wash all produce consumed raw thoroughly, especially leafy greens grown near CAFOs.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Rice 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 Rice County average
Your land is one point inside Rice County
Everything above resolves to Rice County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 465K 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 Rice County Average
Rice County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Rice County
- ●One soil character for all of Rice County
- ●Frost dates read at Rice County's scale: Apr 4 to Nov 1
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Rice County's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Rice County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Rice County, Kansas — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Rice County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Rice County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Rice County average
How we know this about Rice 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 Rice County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Rice County
When does frost risk typically end in Rice County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Rice County typically lands around Apr 4, 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 25.
How long is the growing season in Rice County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Rice County sees about 211 frost-free days — roughly Apr 4 through Nov 1, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 25 to Oct 18, about 176 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Rice County?
The federal record around Rice County is a meaningful one — 378 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (262), 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 Rice County's scale — its 6b band and its 211-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Rice 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 Rice County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Rice County's own scale — its own ~211-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 378 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Rice County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Rice County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~211-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Rice CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 378 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
- Rice County's boundary and the 464,790 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~211-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Rice County sitting wholly inside the Central Great PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Rice County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Rice 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 Rice County — the ~211 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 Rice County's 464,790 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 378 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 Rice Countyread your own land →