I encourage each and every forum participant to take advantage of the limited time free offer to access this resource for their plantings or potential future land assessments.
There are things they list I hadn’t considered fully in my orchard and some of the crop assessment is off. For example, it says my property is not suitable for black locust or black walnut but I have a bunch of both happily growing on the edge of our field.
Overall it is an EXTREMELY robust tool and factors in many things that are worthy of attention. Free through January, don’t wait to sign up.
Very interesting report! I’d definitely take it with a grain of salt, though. The report was way off on soil pH and flood zones, and I disagree with its soil structure results. Overall though, it identifies factors that I hadn’t considered before. Thanks for sharing, @disc4tw!
Happy to help. I’m confident there will be discrepancies for anyone who uses it, but it’s a huge advantage to use this when making an assessment. Trust but verify.
I took at look at it and I agree theres definitely some descrepancies but a neat guide. I’m guessing its based on usda soil survey data.
I am curious what other factors theyre using for suitability. Like your black walnut example, I wonder if they are assuming black walnuts need a certain soil depth, ph, or type. Here they grow like weeds, and I’m assuming they do across the native range for the most part.
I remember showing it to @Owlcreekfarm and it said he couldn’t grow all kinds of things that definitely can grow in his area in OK.
Love the idea of this tool but it needs refinement. Overall I like what the Savanna institute is doing, and by extension Canopy. I actually got to meet a couple guys from Canopy at last years INFGA scion swap.
With weather/climate trends changing I’d really like to see more of this type of research be conducted in a place that gets the extreme heat, humidity and drought that the south gets and gets plenty of cold weather as well. Summers are pretty mild in IA and WI by comparsion to most of the South and lower midwest.
Thanks for the headsup! I love maps and this is great. I ran it for my site in Montana. Very interesting and detailed report. I like the different views showing slope, 3 mile radius around my site, water etc. The satellite views are dated, I can tell since there are former cropland areas nearby that are now subdivisions, developed in the last 4 years or so. We are always scouting land so I will probably use this in future before any purchases. The specific report was very interesting, it rules out a lot of crops only due to rainfall limitations, BUT everything around here is typically irrigated (we get avg 14 inches of precip yearly). And even though it says my site is unsuitable for things like cherries and plums, plums grow wild by the ditches, are planted in the city parks, and I get generous crops yearly from my University of Saskatchewan cherries. It only advised me to plant apples. Whatever, still lots of data to look through online. Thanks for the recommendation.
I do use Weatherspark for comparing weather data between sites worldwide. You can compare growing degree days, length of growing season, timing of precipitation, typical windspeed etc. It can give a rough idea of your growing conditions versus someone else’s. It interpolates for small towns between nearby locations of airports etc so not always accurate.
Our soil report claims fantastic silty loamy soil, either marked as farmland of statewide importance or prime farmland for the two soil units present.
That said, the Canopy report says drainage and a potentially high water table might be a challenge for chestnuts. Based on test pits dug prior to our purchase I concur with that assessment generally and plan to make some modifications for success and specific locations for tree placement.
I think it’s reasonable to assume their assessment is base on average and historical lidar measurements existing on the site.
Using various strategies for water shedding or retention presents opportunities for success, like your ditches! As I mentioned above, I may modify certain spots for chestnuts, i. e. making raised beds or mounds and retaining water in other areas for blueberries, cranberries, etc.
There was a survey that went around last year from Savanna Institute and I assume they included those results into Canopy Compass. I took the survey, and I remember a lot of the question seemed guided by specifics of soil pH and climatic factors. For species like black walnut, I remember answering frequently “it doesn’t matter” i.e. it’s a robust generalist tree that will work ALMOST anywhere. Obviously I understand it’s difficult to make predictions around such broad parameters but as time goes by I hope they are able to find better metrics for the data.