Thursday, May 19, 2011

Web Soil Survey...a useful tool

I have been studying again and I am trying to make a good, practical plan of action...step by step.
I am trying to be sure, what comes first!
Yesterday I went back to the PFI website, which I enjoyed so much last season, and I started looking at some old archived farminars.
Today that farminar led me to this INVALUABLE site, provided by USDA web soil survey.  The speaker was pretty great and I regret that I wasn't able to participate while it was live, I really enjoyed the recording anyways.
whole farm soil planning . It would have been a foreign language without having looked at it on the farminar, and listen to the discussion about it's infinite usefulness. It was better than the Christian County GIS, which I really had a ball with last year, and this is yet another useful tool in the box. I could see how incredibly helpful it would be in CHOOSING a property to farm, or even just for folk about to build a home. It is soooooo worth checking out. It has information about your soil type, it's water holding capability, and so much more.
For us, this could be areas prone to flooding (our house in town), or sinkholes (the neighborhood), moreso than the GIS, which I believe only gives info on existing sinkholes (in other words, the people using the system are the ones trained to put the clues together about what the maps mean).

I enjoyed many farminars in the last 48 hours! And feel like I have caught up on a lot going on and hope to stay up to date.

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