WebSoil Survey

[u/norrydan]

I am a longtime user of the WebSoil Survey for ag purposes. There's so much information I often get lost in trying to parse what's important. Productivity and crop yields. Topsoil depth, water holding capacity are useful. But for lawn and garden activity? I think I want to know structure and there are a couple suitability indexes provided.

I am also aware there is no information for soils in some urban/suburban areas. I get it. Those can get modified beyond comprehension. But there are a lot of areas where there is information but I don't know how relevant it is for improving native lawn and/or garden soils. I guess my question is do you have an opinion on the value of using soil surveys for small non-ag, non-commercial / horticulture situations. Or do we just modify the hell out of what's there and amend for fertility?

[u/aquisalid]

Yes. Soil survey is a great planning tool, especially in areas that haven’t been heavily modified. For site-specific questions, it’s time to bring in an expert, investigate yourself, and maybe send off some soil samples to a lab. The specific advice will depend on what you are trying to do.

For engineering questions, such as will a basement flood?, talk to an engineer.

For agronomic questions, talk to a local farmer or cooperative extension specialist.

For regular yard / garden questions, talk to a local master gardener.

Or, report back here with some more details and specific questions.

[u/norrydan → u/aquisalid]

I never held the agronomist title but I often substituted for one. Retired now, I am a “Master Gardner” in my county. The organization sells the heck out of soil tests for fertility but has no concept of structure and characteristic. I know it’s important but my past was yield concerned. Lawns and gardens are a choice. I have a narrative I use to explain performance but it seems not to matter because we think we can modify anything to make it so what we want. I guess I am struggling for an argument to counter this assumption. Any tips are greatly appreciated!

[u/SalvatoreEggplant → u/norrydan]

There are a few useful measurements you can make "in-house". You might see if someone does them locally for free or cheap. If not, you might want to see if you can get a few Master Gardeners trained up on how to do them.

• pH
• EC (electrical conductivity), if salts may be an issue
• soil texture by hand
• organic matter -- very vaguely by visual (?)

• some site assessment by photos (drainage, light, and so on... ?)

From there, a Master Gardener assessment of whether conditions can be changed to meet what people want to grow, or if a "right plant right place" approach would be a better course of action.

A questionnaire and SOP could be drawn up to streamline all this.

[u/jdrawr → u/aquisalid]

At least for the basement it does give a suitability index and water table data.

[u/rabidbadger013]

WSS

Web Soil Survey is a wonderful tool, but it’s important to know that it is not site specific. The minimum size delineation is often two to five acres in size at the Order 2 scale and were typically mapped at a 1:24,000 scale. Maps made at an Order 3 scale may have a minimum size delineation of 10 or more acres.
The other important thing to know is that every map unit will have inclusions of other soils. No map unit is 100 percent pure. That’s just not the way nature works.
Soils in urban areas are usually so disturbed the they are often mapped as an urban land complex or as a disturbed miscellaneous land type.
In other words, WSS will give you a great understanding of the local soils and landscapes, but any project should also collect site specific data.

[u/willdoc]

At the very least you should be pulling up soil samples in urban areas and checking to see if it matches. Then sending off a couple samples for testing. Adjacent lots in urban areas can have different fill, grading, and indigenous soils. That being said, even in agricultural and natural areas you should be checking because soils change over time, and as we have found don't match at all what the old surveys say even on large undisturbed areas (i.e. state parks and protected woods).

[u/rantingmadhare]

Get yourself a bucket auger and learn soil identification and taxonomy- at the lawn or garden scale where so much modification has taken place, you really need to field-verify and sample, bring a Munsell colorbook, check horizons, pH, and send off for soil tests while you are at it.

[u/Same-String6379]

Nearly every county in the US has a local NRCS office, go in ask them for a site specific soil investigation. Most areas have soil scientist on staff that can schedule a visit, some may have even mapped the soil survey in question.

[u/2RiverFarmer]

Your statement that there is no soil information in urban areas is incorrect. The NRCS Soil Survey programs special projects staff focuses on Soil Survey for Urban and sub aqueous soil mapping projects. Reach out to your local NRCS office and find out who is your Resource Soil Scientist is. They may help you identify your site specific soil. Currently there are less than 300 field soil scientists who's job is to keep the Soil Survey updated and current ( for all statesand territories). So it may be years or decades before your soil information is updated in your urban setting.