growing season

growing season, period of the year during which growing conditions for indigenous vegetation and cultivated crops are most favourable. It usually becomes shorter as distance from the Equator increases. In equatorial and tropical regions the growing season ordinarily lasts all year, whereas in higher latitudes—e.g., in the tundra—it may last as little as two months or less. Growing season also varies according to elevation above sea level, higher elevations tending to have shorter growing seasons. Annual plants complete their entire life cycle in a single growing season, while biennial plants live for two growing seasons. A plant that lives for more than two growing seasons is a perennial. The growing season for cultivated plants can be extended with the use of greenhouses.

Length of growing season is frequently measured in two ways. One enumerates the days of the year when average temperature is above the threshold at which crops or wild plants will germinate and continue to grow. This measure varies depending on the species. For example, wheat and many other plants require an average temperature of at least 5 °C (40 °F) to germinate. Others, such as corn (maize), have a threshold of germination of 10 °C (50 °F). Rice has an even higher threshold, about 20 °C (68 °F). Ordinarily, in the temperate zones, average temperatures exceed the threshold during most of the growing season—which begins when the threshold is reached in spring and ends when temperatures drop below it. Plants require average temperatures to exceed the threshold during most of the season in order to mature rapidly. Where latitude or elevation keeps average temperatures at or near the threshold all season long, plants ripen more slowly and do not develop as fully as they will do in more compatible temperatures.

The other mode of measurement for growing seasons is stated in terms of frost-free days—i.e., the average number of days between the last frost of spring and the first killing frost of fall or winter. Most agriculture requires a frost-free season of at least about 90 days. Some areas of temperate-zone countries, such as mountainous areas, have fewer than 90 days in their frost-free seasons, and this is also true of subarctic regions. Such areas are restricted to crops that can germinate and mature within their shorter seasons. However, in these higher latitudes the greatly increased duration of daylight in summer compensates significantly for shorter frost-free seasons. Other areas within the temperate zones, where warm oceanic or air currents greatly prolong high average temperatures, may have 240 or more frost-free days each year.