Buying a rural home? Nope, you're buying the soil - Here is your 1st step to success

1st step: Get a Soil Survey!

A soil survey is a detailed report on the soils of an area.

The soil survey has maps with soil boundaries and photos, descriptions, and tables of soil properties and features.

Soil surveys are used by farmers, ranchers, real estate agents, land use planners, engineers and others who desire information about the soil resource of a given piece of land.

Complete Soil Surveys are available from the NRCS, in book form, from your local library of NRCS Field Office.

or

You can access the NRCS Web Soil Survey (aka WSS) online directly at http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/

I love the virtual version for quick answers that I can share with my rural clients.

"The Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The site is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information."

Try this wonderful and useful service out . . . use your own address for starters. Did you buy the right piece of land to achieve your rural property goals? or did you accidentally buy the home of your dreams only to find out it was built on a rock pile or that the soils are only 10 inches deep.

Check the Web Soil Survey and find out for sure!

May all your acres be green ones!