Gentry County, in Missouri, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — 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.
Gentry County lies within the North Missouri Glaciated Plains (Green Hills) — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Gentry County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Gentry 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 Gentry County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Gentry County — the short answer
Gentry County, Missouri: USDA zone 6a, about 207 days between hard freezes, across 315K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 30
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~207
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 315K 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 6a is Gentry County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Gentry County's 207-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Gentry County
Across a year, Gentry County accumulates about 3,375 growing degree days above 50°F, about 378 fewer than the middle Missouri county — ahead of 11 of Missouri’s 115 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 Gentry County
Across Gentry County, the ground is predominantly Alfisols, where Grundy, Nodaway, and Gara are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally somewhat poorly drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 6.1–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group C/D soils.
Soil order
Alfisols
Drainage
Somewhat poorly drained
Prime farmland
14%
Hydric soils
11%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Gentry County
The USDA soil survey maps 51% of Gentry County as somewhat poorly drained — but another 49% drains differently: 25% well drained, 13% moderately well drained.
Grundy is the most extensive named soil at 11% of mapped acres, then Nodaway (7%) and Gara (6%).
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 Gentry County
Each reading below is measured for Gentry 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 Gentry County are somewhat 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 Gentry County runs about pH 6.1–6.5, 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
MeasuredGentry County runs about 207 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
MeasuredGentry County sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
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 Gentry County is in
Gentry County sits in the Central Irregular Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Gentry County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Gentry County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 207-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 Missouri profile.
Is it too late to plant in Gentry 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 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 30 — 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.
What gets applied to farmland in Gentry County
USGS estimates 100,096 lb of Glyphosate on Gentry County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Metolachlor & Metolachlor-s (47,868 lb) and Atrazine (37,926 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 Gentry County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Gentry County — 57 documented sites across 6 of the 9 source types we track.
The most significant on record: 1 Toxics Release Inventory facility. Active industrial facilities reporting chemical releases to air, water, and land.
The federal record across Gentry County is a modest one — a typical footprint for a growing area. Nothing here calls for alarm; it's worth knowing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and each one on the map carries its type and location. If one turns out to be a near neighbor, a one-time soil test settles the question.
Sources: EPA, USGS — 1.8M documented sites tracked nationwide across 9 federal source types.
What's on the federal record near Gentry County
Closest first, across Gentry County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- T62N R31W 20ADC1Nitrate · 2.9 mi
- SMITHFIELD, RUCKMAN FARMCAFO · 3.6 mi
- JOHNSON CONTROLS INC-ALBANYToxics Release Inventory · 4.2 mi
- TEMPMASTERBrownfields · 4.2 mi
- T63N R31W 23ABA1Nitrate · 4.4 mi
- T63N R31W 26ADNitrate · 4.4 mi
- SMITH'S MFA SERVICEUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.6 mi
- ROBERTSON'S SERVICE STATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1055Underground Storage Tanks · 4.7 mi
- GM CHITTIMUnderground Storage Tanks · 4.8 mi
- T63N R30W 19CNitrate · 4.8 mi
- KENDALL SMITHCAFO · 4.9 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Gentry 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 Gentry County.
Total Sites
57
across Gentry County
Risk Level
Moderate
Highest-severity
1 Toxics Release Inventory facility
Sources Checked
across Gentry County
Severity Distribution
across Gentry County
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Gentry County, two things run higher than the national average across Gentry County — CAFO (5 sites) and Nitrate (22 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around 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 Gentry 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 Gentry County average
Your land is one point inside Gentry County
Everything above resolves to Gentry County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 315K 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 Gentry County Average
Gentry County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Gentry County
- ●One soil character for all of Gentry County
- ●Frost dates read at Gentry County's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 30
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Gentry County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Gentry County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Gentry County, Missouri — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Gentry County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Gentry County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Gentry County average
How we know this about Gentry 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 Gentry County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Gentry County
When does frost risk typically end in Gentry County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Gentry County typically lands around Apr 6, 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 27.
How long is the growing season in Gentry County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Gentry County sees about 207 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 30, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 16, about 172 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Gentry County?
The federal record around Gentry County shows 57 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (23), the nearest Nitrate record about 2.9 miles out — a typical footprint for a growing area, and proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard. It's worth seeing which recorded sites sit closest to where you grow, and testing the soil before new food beds near any of them.
Everything above is measured at Gentry County's scale — its 6a band and its 207-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Gentry 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 Missouri's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Gentry County’s own scale
8 of the readings below were taken at Gentry County's own scale — its own ~207-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 57 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Gentry County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Gentry County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~207-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Gentry CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 57 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 2.9 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Gentry County's boundary and the 314,510 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~207-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Gentry County sitting wholly inside the Central Irregular PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Gentry County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Missouri grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Missouri
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Gentry County — the ~207 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 Gentry County's 314,510 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 57 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 Gentry Countyread your own land →