Feasibility of Climate and Soil in Enshi Tobacco Growing Areas

Climate feasibility and soil feasibility were evaluated comprehensively by applying membership function and estimating weight values for each indexby using principal components analysis. The results indicated that Ehshi tobacco growing areas had a long frost-free period, high accumulated temperature of≥10℃, a long period of time with daily average temperature of ≥20℃, favorable pH value and low content of chlorine. The basic ecological conditions werefavorable for the development of high quality tobacco leaves. Climate feasibility index (CFI) was 0.80 and ranged from 0.74 to 0.87. Based on CFI, tobaccogrowing areas could be classified into three groups by cluster analysis. Soil feasibility index (SFI) was 0.67, and ranged from 0.589 to 0.805. Based on SFI,tobacco growing areas could be classified into four groups by cluster analysis.