Soil is a living and life-giving substance, without which we would perish. During the Dust Bowl era, our agency, then called the Soil Conservation Service, was created to study soil loss and help create solutions to fix it. Over the years, we've grown into an agency that works with private landowners to conserve soil and other natural resources. This page features information on NRCS' soil work, including the work in Mississippi.
Mississippi State Soil
The state soil for Mississippi is the Natchez Silt Loam. Learn more.
About Mississippi's Soil Survey Program
The state of Mississippi is a part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS)program. Mississippi's Soil Survey program has two major areas of operation production; they are soil survey and technical soil services. Quality assurance and technical assistance for Mississippi's soil survey program are provided by Southeast Coastal Plain and Lower Mississippi River Valley, Soil Survey Region Office (SSR7).
NRCS MLRS Explorer brings to the World Wide Web the 2006 version of Agricultural Handbook 296, Land Resources Regions (LRR) and Major Land Resources Areas (MLRA) of the United States, the Caribbean, and the Pacific Basin. A map interface allows the user to search for one or more Major Land Resources Area(s). Based on the MLRA(s) that the user selects via the map interface a printable report can be generated. The report can contain an overview of the LRR containing the MLRA(s); the narrative text (pertaining to physiography, geology, climate, water, soils, biology, and land use), maps and photos contained in Agricultural Handbook 296.
Mississippi's 82 counties consist of 3 Land Resources Regions (LLR) and 6 Major Land Resources Areas (MLRA):
Mississippi's 82 counties consist of 3 Land Resource Regions (LRR) and 6 Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA):
- O- Mississippi Delta Cotton and Feed Grains Region (LRR)
- 131A - Southern Mississippi River Alluvium (MLRA)
- P - South Atlantic and Gulf Slope Cash Crops, Forest, and Livestock Region (LRR)
- 133A - Southern Coastal Plain (MLRA)
- 134 - Southern Mississippi Valley Loess (MLRA)
- 135A - Alabama and Mississippi Blackland Prairie (MLRA)
- T - Atlantic and Gulf Coast Lowland Forest and Crop Region (LRR)
- 151 - Gulf Coast Marsh (MLRA)
- 152A - Eastern Gulf Coast Flatwoods (MLRA)
Related Links to Soil
NRCS, Soils
Soil Survey
Web Soil Survey
Published Soil Surveys for Mississippi
Mississippi State Soil
Mississippi Automated Resources Information System (MARIS)
National Resources Inventory (NRI)
United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Careers in Soil Science
Contact
Delaney Johnson, State Soil Scientist, 601-863.3910
