Goal:

The goal of this project was to identify agricultural areas within the state of Minnesota suitable for hops farming. Hops grow best between latitudes of 30 and 55 degrees making Minnesota a good canidate for hops farming. Additionally hops prefer full sun, ph levels of 6.5 to 8, and rich and well drained soil.

Process:

I took the following steps to complete this project:

1. Data Collection about land cover, soil, ownership, and boundaries.
2. Analysis of soil ph data & convert to raster.
3. Analysis of soil drainage data & convert to raster.
4. Analysis of ownership data & convert to raster.
5. Analysis of land cover data.
6. Multiply raster datasets to find suitable area.
7. Prepare final output showing suitable areas.

Outcome:

The map produced is shown below. There are approximately 6,145,643 acreas of suitable agriculatural land for hops farming in Minnesota. This is a good starting point for identifying suitable areas. Further exploration of these areas will be necessary to determine actual feasibility of the sites for hops production.