Soil Types

[Ken B]

Abso-freaking-lutely fantastic! Thanks!

 

[Joker]

If you are going to do farm appraisals, study those soil types. You'll know what slopes they are; you'll get to where you can almost guess the soil type of a particular farm just by looking and knowing the area.

 

[lauralee]

Thanks to the OP for posting this, I was thinking about asking something similar today, while driving around in a rural area.

I've learned more in this forum than in any class I've taken so far

 

[Michigan CG]

If you are going to do farm appraisals, study those soil types. You'll know what slopes they are; you'll get to where you can almost guess the soil type of a particular farm just by looking and knowing the area.

Dang....how long you been appraising farms? Don't think I could ever be that good, but I have heard of others who can do the same.

 

[SharperImage]

I used to have all of the soils books from every county in Wisconsin and for some counties around it.
I use the website for almost every appraisal I do. The aerial's are good, and you can for the most part get pretty close to the acreage of your subject, highlight it and viola there it is.
We print them as PDF's then convert them to JPEGS and insert them in the report, quick and seamless......

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I get the county soils books. Many counties have them on CD now. The soil associations and types are coded so ToA means Taloka and "A" means its level. B some sloped and C, D, steeper steeper.

In the book you will find charts giving you the soils properties and its suitability. Particularly important in some areas. The Jay and Taloka soils in our area drains poorly and often has a perched water table. Septic systems in these soils types frequently are required to be gravel bed systems or alternative systems whereas a soil like Captina might be suited for a regular septic system. They are usually free and you can pick them up at the county USDA office (sometimes a USDA office covers more than one county) and they usually have flood maps to look at too. It the Natural Resources suboffice.

 

[farmguy]

If you are new to appraising rural land I would be careful not to become more sophisticated than your market. There are a lot of areas that soils play a big part in what a place sells for, but there are a lot of rural areas that is not the case. I have seen a lot of appraisers talk soils up a lot because it makes for good boiler plate, but in some areas you ask 9 out of 10 buyers what kind of soils they have and they don't know. In my area of Texas most buyers know whether it is sandy ground or not, beyond that they don't know. If you are in cropland areas they are much more likely to pay attention to that. But even in those areas it often boils down to 3 soil types - good, decent, and sorry but it joined me. Just because there may be 9 soil types in an area doesn't mean there has to be 9 adjustment categories.

 

[SharperImage]

I get the county soils books. Many counties have them on CD now. The soil associations and types are coded so ToA means Taloka and "A" means its level. B some sloped and C, D, steeper steeper.

In the book you will find charts giving you the soils properties and its suitability. Particularly important in some areas. The Jay and Taloka soils in our area drains poorly and often has a perched water table. Septic systems in these soils types frequently are required to be gravel bed systems or alternative systems whereas a soil like Captina might be suited for a regular septic system. They are usually free and you can pick them up at the county USDA office (sometimes a USDA office covers more than one county) and they usually have flood maps to look at too. It the Natural Resources suboffice.

Actually the website has all of that and more, it gives everything that the books did plus you can zoom into the property you're doing and it will show you the types of soils, the limitations and suitabilities and highlight those areas in COLOR.
Plus in my neck of the woods, they're getting away from the books because of the cost to produce them. They used to be free, the last one I got cost me $20.00............

 

[Joe Masin]

Thanks, SharperImage, it looks like an interesting site. Like others, I currently use the USDA Soil Survey books. I can see, however, the product of this site will be valued addition.
Jersey Joe

 

[SharperImage]

Joe Masin

Thanks, SharperImage, it looks like an interesting site. Like others, I currently use the USDA Soil Survey books. I can see, however, the product of this site will be valued addition.
Jersey Joe

The website has everything the books do and I think is more user friendly because you can get the info for just your parcel.

Best of luck.