Issaquena County, in Mississippi, sits in USDA hardiness zone 8b — a zone band wide enough that plant choice, not possibility, is the interesting question.
Crops well matched to these conditions include cabbage, fig, california poppy, and collard greens — though what thrives on any one site still turns on its specific soil, sun, and drainage.
Issaquena County 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
Issaquena County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Issaquena 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 Issaquena County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Issaquena County — the short answer
Issaquena County, Mississippi: USDA zone 8b, about 287 days between hard freezes, across 264K acres.
- USDA zone
- 8b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Feb 16
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~287
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 264K 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 Issaquena County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Issaquena County's 287-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat and winter chill in Issaquena County
Across a year, Issaquena County accumulates about 5,625 growing degree days above 50°F, about 227 more than the middle Mississippi county — ahead of 51 of Mississippi’s 82 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 1,031 hours below 45°F, 161 fewer than the Mississippi middle of 1,192. 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 Issaquena County
Across Issaquena County, the ground is predominantly Inceptisols, where Sharkey, Dowling, and Commerce are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally poorly drained with a clay surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.8, neutral. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Inceptisols
Drainage
Poorly drained
Prime farmland
31%
Hydric soils
74%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Issaquena County
The USDA soil survey maps 58% of Issaquena County as poorly drained — but another 30% drains differently: 23% somewhat poorly drained, 6% very poorly drained.
Sharkey is the most extensive named soil at 44% of mapped acres, then Dowling (29%) and Commerce (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 Issaquena County
Each reading below is measured for Issaquena 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 Issaquena County 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 Issaquena County runs about pH 6.8, 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
MeasuredIssaquena County runs about 287 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
MeasuredIssaquena County 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 Issaquena County is in
Issaquena County sits in the Mississippi Alluvial Plain — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Issaquena County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Issaquena County's own USDA zone 8b and its own 287-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 Mississippi profile.
Is it too late to plant in Issaquena County?
Rarely: the season closes in stages, not all at once, and each stage has its crops. Cool-season crops can go in from around Jan 19; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Feb 16 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 30 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. In a climate this gentle, “too late” hardly applies — the question becomes which crops prefer the cooler months ahead.
What gets applied to farmland in Issaquena County
USGS estimates 36,378 lb of Glyphosate on Issaquena County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (25,507 lb) and Metolachlor-s (15,431 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 Issaquena County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Issaquena County — 22 documented sites across 3 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 brownfield site. Former commercial or industrial land where legacy contamination may persist.
The federal record across Issaquena County is light. Growing food here starts from a strong position — a quick pass over the map tells you whether any recorded site sits near your land, and if one does, that's information to plant with, not a reason to stop.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Issaquena County
Closest first, across Issaquena County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- Fitler GroceryUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.7 mi
- Nick's Flying Service IncUnderground Storage Tanks · 2.8 mi
- 055D0012 ISSAQUENANitrate · 5.9 mi
- 055B0029 ISSAQUENANitrate · 8.0 mi
- Mayersville StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 10.3 mi
- 055B0020 ISSAQUENANitrate · 10.8 mi
- TETLP LINE NUMBER 26 MILE POST 70.33 ISSBrownfields · 11.4 mi
- 055F0007 ISSAQUENANitrate · 11.5 mi
- 055F0040 ISSAQUENANitrate · 11.9 mi
- Valley Park StoreUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.7 mi
- 055A0093 ISSAQUENANitrate · 13.8 mi
- 055A0175 ISSAQUENA (HopNitrate · 13.9 mi
3 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Issaquena 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 Issaquena County.
Severity Distribution
across Issaquena County
Highest-Severity Sites
Know Before You Grow
- •On a private well, test for nitrates: above 10 mg/L the water needs treatment before irrigating.
- •Underground tanks leak petroleum as they age — near a former filling station, test the soil.
- •Near a brownfield, raised beds of imported soil give your food clean ground.
Check your specific parcel in Issaquena 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 Issaquena County average
Your land is one point inside Issaquena County
Everything above resolves to Issaquena County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 264K 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 Issaquena County Average
Issaquena County Average
- ●USDA Zones 8b, averaged across Issaquena County
- ●One soil character for all of Issaquena County
- ●Frost dates read at Issaquena County's scale: Feb 16 to Nov 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Issaquena County's 8b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Issaquena County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Issaquena County, Mississippi — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Issaquena County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Issaquena County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Issaquena County average
How we know this about Issaquena 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 Issaquena County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Issaquena County
When does frost risk typically end in Issaquena County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Issaquena County typically lands around Feb 16, 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 9.
How long is the growing season in Issaquena County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Issaquena County sees about 287 frost-free days — roughly Feb 16 through Nov 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Mar 9 to Nov 16, about 252 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Issaquena County?
The federal record around Issaquena County is light — 22 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (14), the nearest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.7 miles out — and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. Growing food here starts from a strong position; a soil test before new food beds settles any site-specific question.
Everything above is measured at Issaquena County's scale — its 8b band and its 287-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Issaquena 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 Mississippi's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Issaquena County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Issaquena County's own scale — its own ~287-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 22 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Issaquena County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 8bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Issaquena County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~287-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Issaquena CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 22 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Underground Storage Tanks record about 2.7 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Issaquena County's boundary and the 264,307 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 8b and a ~287-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Issaquena County sitting wholly inside the Mississippi Alluvial PlainUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Issaquena County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Mississippi grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Mississippi
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Issaquena County — the ~287 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 Issaquena County's 264,307 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 22 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 Issaquena Countyread your own land →