North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Andriy Palamarchuk <apa3a@yahoo.com>]

--- Jim Fruth <jfruth@uslink.net> wrote:
>    What good are all of the other wannabee climate
> zone maps?  The USDA map
> is in general use by catalog plant sellers; can you
> imagine the confusion if
> each used a different one?  Do the other climate
> zone map authors hope that catalogers will adopt
theirs?

Jim, all the maps I mentioned earlier use exactly the
same temperature classification as existing official
USDA map, they just apply this classification to
different, supposedly more up-to-date, complete and
accurate set of data.

As result they do not create any confusion for
catalogers because the catalogers use the temperature
classification, not the location data.
E.g. if plant is described as cold-hardy to zone 6
this means that it can survive cold 0F - -10F. This
information is independent of what map one uses as
long as "zone 6" means the same on all maps, right?

Maps multitude create differences for plant growers -
different maps can assign different temperature ranges
to the same location. I see maps multitude as a good
thing - plant growers got one more sources of
information.

This is up to grower what source of information to
trust whether official 1990 year version based on data
before 1990 or the 2003 year draft based on more
up-to-date data.

I can understand why later may be considered more
accurate - since 1990 there was big advance in
technology allowing to gather, compile and analyze
bigger data sets and as result to find finer-grained
microclimats.
Also we got other 10 years of weather data.

As other posters mentioned plant grower has to rely on
her own judgement to find cold hardiness zone for some
specific spot and may come with different zone than is
specified on any map.

Andriy
Eastern MA, zone 6.

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