Pawnee County, in Nebraska, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
A short list that earns its place here — cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens — with any one site's soil, sun, and drainage making the final cut.
Pawnee County lies within the Southeast Nebraska / Omaha-Lincoln Loess Corridor — a regional growing area with its own character.
Grounded in USDA PHZM 2023 · Growable Ground suitability scoring · NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Pawnee County holds more than one microclimate.
Soils and elevations shift across Pawnee 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 Pawnee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Pawnee County — the short answer
Pawnee County, Nebraska: USDA zone 6a, about 200 days between hard freezes, across 276K acres.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 24
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- Days between freezes
- ~200
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F
- County area
- 276K 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 Pawnee County's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Pawnee County's 200-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Heat in Pawnee County
Across a year, Pawnee County accumulates about 3,376 growing degree days above 50°F, about 536 more than the middle Nebraska county — ahead of 90 of Nebraska’s 93 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 Pawnee County
Across Pawnee County, the ground is predominantly Mollisols, where Pawnee, Wymore, and Malmo are the most extensive named soil series. The soil is generally moderately well drained with a clay loam surface. Topsoil pH runs about 5.8–6.5, slightly acidic. Rainfall drains through hydrologic group D soils.
Soil order
Mollisols
Drainage
Moderately well drained
Prime farmland
33%
Hydric soils
6%
Soil still varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
How the ground varies across Pawnee County
The USDA soil survey maps 62% of Pawnee County as moderately well drained — but another 38% drains differently: 29% well drained, 7% poorly drained.
Pawnee is the most extensive named soil at 24% of mapped acres, then Wymore (21%) and Malmo (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 Pawnee County
Each reading below is measured for Pawnee 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 Pawnee County are moderately well drained, in hydrologic group D — roughly the middle of the drainage range.
This is close to the middle most vegetables prefer: it holds enough water to carry a crop between rains without staying waterlogged. The catch is that a wet spring or a low corner can still tip it soggy.
Plant on the site as-is for most crops, but keep the lowest, slowest-draining beds for moisture-tolerant plantings.
USDA NRCS SSURGO
Surface pH
MeasuredTopsoil across Pawnee County runs about pH 5.8–6.5, 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
MeasuredPawnee County runs about 200 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
MeasuredPawnee 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 Pawnee County is in
Pawnee County sits in the Western Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Great Plains. One consistent ecological setting across the whole county.
What Grows in Pawnee County
We scored all 1,086 plants against Pawnee County's own USDA zone 6a and its own 200-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 Nebraska profile.
Is it too late to plant in Pawnee County?
Almost never — the real question is what to plant next. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 10; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 24 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Pawnee County
- monarch butterfly1 documented records
Sighting records, so they follow observers as much as insects.
What gets applied to farmland in Pawnee County
USGS estimates 166,926 lb of Glyphosate on Pawnee County farmland in 2019, its largest by weight, ahead of Acephate (73,271 lb) and Atrazine (67,402 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 Pawnee County — and how to grow with it.
We checked the federal record across Pawnee County — 14 documented sites across 5 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 Pawnee 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 Pawnee County
Closest first, across Pawnee County. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- 1N 10E 1DB 1Nitrate · 4.1 mi
- 2N 11E26CCCC1Nitrate · 5.1 mi
- PAWNEE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLBrownfields · 5.1 mi
- CASEYS GENERAL STORE #1579Underground Storage Tanks · 5.1 mi
- 2N 12E32BB 1Nitrate · 8.1 mi
- DENs COUNTRY MEATSUnderground Storage Tanks · 8.6 mi
- HENRY R. SCHAARDT LIVESTOCKCAFO · 8.9 mi
- SCHAARDT AG. INC.CAFO · 8.9 mi
- FRAZEE FARMSToxics Release Inventory · 10.3 mi
- LEWISTON CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLBrownfields · 11.3 mi
- FRIEDLY OILUnderground Storage Tanks · 12.6 mi
Measured from Pawnee 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 Pawnee County.
Sources Checked
across Pawnee County
Severity Distribution
across Pawnee 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 Pawnee 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 Pawnee County average
Your land is one point inside Pawnee County
Everything above resolves to Pawnee County as a whole — one PHZM band and one county frost record, read across 276K 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 Pawnee County Average
Pawnee County Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Pawnee County
- ●One soil character for all of Pawnee County
- ●Frost dates read at Pawnee County's scale: Apr 7 to Oct 24
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Pawnee County's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your parcel in Pawnee County
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Pawnee County, Nebraska — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Pawnee County averages can't show:
We read public map data around Pawnee County — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Pawnee County average
How we know this about Pawnee 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 Pawnee County carries no record of its own, the figure is inherited and labelled — the resolution ledger below names each.
Common questions about Pawnee County
When does frost risk typically end in Pawnee County?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Pawnee County typically lands around Apr 7, 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 28.
How long is the growing season in Pawnee County?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Pawnee County sees about 200 frost-free days — roughly Apr 7 through Oct 24, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 28 to Oct 10, about 165 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Pawnee County?
The federal record around Pawnee County is light — 14 documented sites across the 9 federal source types we checked, mostly Nitrate entries (6), the nearest Nitrate record about 4.1 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 Pawnee County's scale — its 6a band and its 200-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Pawnee 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 Nebraska's frost window, season length, and soil profile against the plant's real requirements.
What this page reads at Pawnee County’s own scale
9 of the readings below were taken at Pawnee County's own scale — its own ~200-day span between 28°F freezes, the 3 most extensive soil series mapped here and 14 documented sites inside its boundary; one is borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Pawnee County's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Pawnee County's own 28°F hard-freeze dates and its ~200-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- The soil order, drainage, surface pH, and the 3 most extensive named soil series mapped in Pawnee CountyUSDA NRCS SSURGO
- 14 documented contamination sites inside the county boundary, distance-sorted from its center — the closest Nitrate record about 4.1 miles outFederal environmental registers
- Pawnee County's boundary and the 275,888 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~200-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- Pawnee County sitting wholly inside the Western Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Open occurrence records documented in Pawnee County for a tracked speciesGBIF derived datasets (CC0 / CC BY 4.0)
- Which agricultural compounds go onto Pawnee County farmland, and roughly how muchUSGS NAWQA EPest county estimates
Inherited from a wider read
- The growing challenges every Nebraska grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Nebraska
What this page can’t tell you
- How the season shifts across Pawnee County — the ~200 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 Pawnee County's 275,888 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which of those 14 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 Pawnee Countyread your own land →