How Does Soil Productivity Determine Land Value?

In agriculture, we know that not all soils are equal. While some soils achieve high productivity, others have limitations related to texture, depth, and drainage that inhibit their yields. These diverse variations make it challenging to directly compare two soils.

What Is a Soil Productivity Index?

Whether you’re in the market to buy new farmland or are considering the yield potential of your soils in your operational planning, soil productivity indices can help. Soil productivity indexes (PIs) are relative scales by which different soils can be compared and assessed. By taking into account many factors that determine yield potential, a soil PI provides a single number to rate soil quality.

There are several publicly available soil PIs covering a range of geographies and some that focus on specific crops. Most PI systems give ratings to each soil data maintained by USDA-NRCS which can be used to map soil types within a field. Typically soil PI scores don’t change over time, unlike crop yields. They represent something more similar to average yield over time. In fact, average crop yields are typically used in constructing soil PIs.