WHAT IS A SOIL SURVEY?
A soil survey is an inventory of the distribution of different types of soils in a given area. Through a soil survey, soil scientists create a map that characterizes soil types to provide useful information about their suitability for various land uses. Soil surveys help us to determine such characteristics as water infiltration, root penetration, acidity, alkalinity, erosion susceptibility and suitability for various types of plants. USDA-NRCS soil scientists conduct the survey.
SAN
JUAN COUNTY SOIL SURVEY AVAILABLE
ONLINE
In 2002 the
USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service (in cooperation
with the SJI Conservation District, San Juan County, and
Washington State Univ) began to update the previous 1962
Survey. The new survey provides more accurate soil
identification. It was published in 2007 and updated in
2009 and is available online. If you have questions, or if
you would like to have a soils map for your property,
please contact the Conservation
District.
The 2009 updated
Soil Survey for San Juan County is available online through
the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service. The web
address is:
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/
When you start the WSS (Web Soil Survey) you will navigate
to your area
of interest (AOI), you can do this by
address, or a custom area defined by you through the
interactive map.
Soil
Testing
How healthy is your
soil? Is it fertile? How do you find out...dig a hole, get
a soil sample and send it in to a lab. Here's a quick
reference on how to do it:
Soil Testing (PDF 96 KB)
San Juan
County Soil Testing Challenge: Fall 2011
88 soil
samples were entered into our Soil Testing Challenge this
past October. We had participants send in soil samples from
San Juan Island, Orcas Island, Lopez Island and Waldron
Island. There will be a follow-up test in Spring 2012
depending on funding.
In
general the results demonstrated that many of the
San Juan
County garden samples showed "high to excessive nutrient
levels."
This is not uncommon, as gardeners like to "kill
their gardens with kindness."
However it was noted that "the advantage in high rainfall
areas is that nature will take care of excesses" in terms
of nutrient levels. On the other hand nutrient
levels in San Juan County pastures were
low.
A
great big thank you to Craig Simson and his staff
at the
AgSource Soil Testing Lab for teaming with
the San Juan Islands Conservation District and San Juan
County WSU Extension to sponsor the San Juan County Soil Test
Challenge: AgSource Laboratories, Umatilla,
Oregon
Interpreting Soils Tests
Soil test Interpretation OSU NEW
(PDF)
