Help! How to locate an area where the most crops and fruit trees may be cultivated?

[Sengorn_Leopard]

Crops have a maximum and minimum temperature, and fruit trees may have a minimum temperature to fruit. 
1.) How gradual is temperature change across latitude? 
2.) Is it possible to find a perfect spot where you can grow tropical and temperate plants in the same farm?
3.) If there is no area where all crops may be grown, which area may the maximum be grown? 

If anyone wishes to help answer these questions, perhaps together we can find the perfect location for our Gardens. I plan to compile this information on a map-graphic if I manage to solve it myself. Currently exploring from temperate to tropical to take readings of temperature extremes. 

[Streetwind]

There is far more to this than you realize. Temperature does change gradually and smoothly (though not necessarily linearly) between poles and equatorial regions, depening on your pole-equator distance world config setting. But that's not the only thing that influences temperature. It also varies with the day-night cycle, with the seasonal cycle, with the current weather, and with your altitude relative to sea level.

So what exactly are your requirements - that you can plant all crops side-by-side year-round? Or that you can plant hot crops in summer and cold crops in winter?

And how much cheese are you willing to pull, like splitting your farm between a hole in the ground and a platform in the mountaintops?

[Sengorn_Leopard]

6 hours ago, Streetwind said:

There is far more to this than you realize. Temperature does change gradually and smoothly (though not necessarily linearly) between poles and equatorial regions, depending on your pole-equator distance world config setting. But that's not the only thing that influences temperature. It also varies with the day-night cycle, with the seasonal cycle, with the current weather, and with your altitude relative to sea level.

So what exactly are your requirements - that you can plant all crops side-by-side year-round? Or that you can plant hot crops in summer and cold crops in winter?

And how much cheese are you willing to pull, like splitting your farm between a hole in the ground and a platform in the mountaintops?

I am okay with changing the crops seasonally, I currently have a mountain so elevation change is possible. I had no idea that elevation would have such an effect. I suppose my primary goal would be to have as many fruit trees as possible in the same general area, then see what i can do about crops. 

[Streetwind]

Right. Regarding fruit trees, the most temperature-sensitive of the tropics trees start having a chance to die once the temperature drops to below +10°C. I don't think it happens immediately upon reaching that temperature; it's probably more something like being below that temperature for a full day. Also, it is possible for the tree to survive down to +6°C, although the chance grows smaller the colder it gets.

Meanwhile, the non-tropics trees need vernalization, and for that to trigger, multiple full days need to pass without the temperature ever climbing above +1.5°C at any point. There's a chance it might still work up to +2.5°C, but for guaranteed fruiting you want a degree below that. And remember, it must not rise above that temp at any point, so that would limit the daily maximum only; daily minimum during the same time will probably be -15°C or even lower. And that's a big problem for the tropics trees, as you can imagine.

Placing a fruit tree into a greenhouse will allow it to vernalize more easily. The +5°C greenhouse bonus is applied to vernalization temperature. It is not, however, applied to any other temperature governing fruit trees.

Peach trees have a die-below temperature of only -12°C, but still need vernalisation, so those are the hardest to cultivate out of all trees. The climate where that works out is a much narrower band than for the other trees. But greenhouses can help here.

All other vernalizing trees can go much colder, and you basically don't need to worry about their survival at all unless you move northwards from spawn. But since you want to accomodate tropics trees, you'll be moving south, and trying to find an area where tropics trees can thrive at sea level while planting vernalizing trees far up a mountain.

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by Streetwind