Morehouse Parish, in Louisiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a band that supports both cool-season staples and warm-season crops chosen to fit the local frost window.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Morehouse Parish lies within the Mississippi Delta — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Morehouse Parish holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Morehouse Parish, 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 Morehouse Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Morehouse Parish — the short answer
Morehouse Parish, Louisiana: USDA zone 8b, about 280 days between hard freezes, across 509K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 21
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 28
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~280
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 509K 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 8b is Morehouse Parish's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Morehouse Parish's 280-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Morehouse Parish
Across a year, Morehouse Parish accumulates about 5,631 growing degree days above 50°F, about 665 fewer than the middle Louisiana county — ahead of 4 of Louisiana’s 64 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.
Winter banks about 1,104 hours below 45°F, 492 more than the Louisiana middle of 612. Chill is what tells a fruit tree its dormancy is over, and it is set by climate rather than by anything you can build.
Grounded in PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University — 1991–2020 monthly normals
Soil in Morehouse County
Across Morehouse County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Perry, Hebert, and Portland are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a silt loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.0–5.8, strongly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
74%
Hydric soils
40%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Morehouse Parish
The USDA soil survey maps 38% of Morehouse Parish as poorly drained — but another 60% drains differently: 29% somewhat poorly drained, 17% well drained.
Perry is the most extensive named soil at 23% of mapped acres, then Hebert (16%) and Portland (7%).
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 Morehouse Parish
Each reading below is measured for Morehouse Parish itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Drainage
MeasuredThe dominant soils across Morehouse Parish are poorly drained, in hydrologic group 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 Morehouse Parish runs about pH 5.0–5.8, on the acidic side.
Blueberries, potatoes, and rhododendrons thrive in it, but most vegetables start locking out nutrients below about pH 6.0 and grow pale and stunted no matter how much you feed them.
A measured lime application raises pH for the crops that need it — but test first, because the right rate depends on your own soil, not the county average.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Season length
MeasuredMorehouse Parish runs about 280 days between hard freezes — close to year-round growing.
Frost is rarely the limit here; winter plantings are as real as summer ones, and the harder question is which crops shrug off the summer heat.
Grow cool-season crops through the mild winter, and choose heat-tolerant varieties for the summer beds.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredMorehouse Parish sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b.
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 Morehouse Parish is in
Morehouse Parish spans 2 EPA Level III ecoregions — Mississippi Alluvial Plain (64%) and South Central Plains (36%). 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 Morehouse Parish
We scored all 1,086 plants against Morehouse Parish's own USDA zone 8b and its own 280-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 Louisiana profile.
Is it too late to plant in Morehouse Parish?
For most of the year, no — what changes is which crops still fit the days remaining. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 24; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 21 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 28 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. With almost year-round growing weather, timing is about heat and rainfall more than frost — some bench is always in play.
What gets applied to farmland in Morehouse Parish
USGS estimates 455,173 lb of Glyphosate on Morehouse Parish farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (286,099 lb) and Metolachlor-s (263,939 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 Morehouse County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Morehouse County — 394 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 Morehouse 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 Morehouse Parish
Closest first, across Morehouse County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Quik Stop #1Underground Storage Tanks · 1.2 mi
- Mo-343Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- Mo-342Nitrate · 1.7 mi
- Parker Chevrolet IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Mer Rouge Quick StopUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- Empty BuildingUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- KENNEDY RICE DRYER LLCBrownfields · 2.8 mi
- Mo-86Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- Mo-16Nitrate · 3.0 mi
- Spillers Oil Co Inc - Woodward Conoco (The Station)Underground Storage Tanks · 3.0 mi
- DOLLAR GENERAL 15838Brownfields · 3.1 mi
- Kennedy ElevatorUnderground Storage Tanks · 3.1 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Morehouse Parish'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 Morehouse Parish.
Total Sites
394
across Morehouse County
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
9 Toxics Release Inventory facilities
Sources Checked
across Morehouse County
Severity Distribution
across Morehouse County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Morehouse Parish, Nitrate runs higher than the national average — 158 sites across Morehouse County. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Nitrate: Nitrate contamination primarily comes from agricultural fertilizer runoff and failing septic systems.
Test well water for nitrate if you rely on a private well for irrigation (EPA standard: 10 mg/L).
Check your specific parcel in Morehouse Parish
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 Morehouse Parish average
Your land is one point inside Morehouse Parish
Everything above resolves to Morehouse Parish as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 509K 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 Morehouse Parish Average
Morehouse Parish Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Morehouse Parish
- ●One soil character for all of Morehouse Parish
- ●Frost dates read at Morehouse Parish's scale: Feb 21 to Nov 28
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Morehouse Parish's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Morehouse Parish
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Morehouse Parish, Louisiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Morehouse Parish averages can't show:
We read public map data around Morehouse Parish — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Morehouse Parish average
How we know this about Morehouse Parish
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 Morehouse Parish carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Morehouse Parish
When does frost risk typically end in Morehouse Parish?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Morehouse Parish typically lands around Feb 21, 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 Mar 14.
How long is the growing season in Morehouse Parish?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Morehouse Parish sees about 280 frost-free days — roughly Feb 21 through Nov 28, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 14 to Nov 14, about 245 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Morehouse Parish?
The federal record around Morehouse Parish is a meaningful one — 394 documented sites, mostly Nitrate entries (158), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles 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 Morehouse Parish's scale — its 8b band and its 280-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Morehouse Parish'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 Louisiana's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Morehouse Parish’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Morehouse Parish's own scale — its own ~280-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 394 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Morehouse Parish's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Morehouse Parish's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~280-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Morehouse ParishUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 394 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 1.2 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Morehouse Parish's boundary and the 508,767 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~280-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The 2 ecoregions Morehouse Parish spans, Mississippi Alluvial Plain the largestUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Morehouse Parish farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Louisiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Louisiana
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Morehouse Parish — the ~280 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 Morehouse Parish's 508,767 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 394 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 Morehouse Parishread your own land →