🌿 Amaranth greens
A true summer green: it thrives in the heat that shuts every other leaf crop down.
What the numbers mean
These are the actual parameters this game runs on. Growth is driven by growing degree days: each day contributes max(0, min(mean temp, 34) − 10), and Amaranth greens is ready when that total reaches 550. That is why the same seed takes a very different number of days in Dublin and in Guangzhou.
| Base temperature | 10°CBelow this, the plant accumulates no growing degree days at all. |
|---|---|
| Degree days to maturity | 550 °C·dThe heat budget it must accumulate before it is ready to pick. |
| Comfortable range | 16–32°CWhere it grows without stress. |
| Frost damage below | 2°CLeaves start taking frost damage below this low. |
| Killed below | 0°CBelow this it does not come back. |
| Heat stress above | 36°CAbove this the plant slows down and stops setting fruit well. |
| Typical time to harvest | 30–45 days |
| Yield per bed | 6 bunches |
Things worth knowing
- Amaranth is one of very few leaf crops that keeps producing through high summer, when most greens bolt above 30°C.
- Red amaranth turns its cooking water deep magenta — the same betalain pigment that colours beetroot.
Where and when to sow Amaranth greens
Pick your city to see the months when Amaranth greens scores well against that city's real climate records: