Application of Soil Survey Information to Soil Specific Farming

This chapter describes the increase in precision required by soil specific farming as farming by phases of soil series or by specific components of a map unit. It discusses soil survey information with respect to soil specific farming, soil survey databases and geographic information systems, and future considerations for using soil survey information in soil specific farming. Map units are specially tailored to each soil survey in the United States. Information on the map unit composition, and phase information of the components is stored in the map unit use file and specific information on the soil components of the map units are stored in the map unit interpretations record in the state soil survey database (SSSD). The national cooperative soil survey supports three geographic databases that represent different scales of soil maps. They are the soil survey geographic database, the SSSD, and the national soil geographic database.