It was dirty work, but somebody had to do it. State soil scientists have wrapped-up a 114-year study involving every granule of earth in Mississippi's 30 million acres.
Scientists celebrated the occasion at the "Last Acre" ceremony at the state Forestry Museum in Jackson Tuesday morning. The ceremony was hosted by the Mississippi Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Over the last century generations of soil surveyors have studied every square inch of real estate in the Magnolia State as a part of a USDA program. The surveys results go well beyond the farm and impacts many industries.
Delaney Johnson, who is the state's lead soil scientist shared with us how important this information is in effectively using the land properly and for the right purpose.
"In order to be able to understand the value and what type of measures and limitations have to be overcome in order to put it into some type of practice and use," Johnson explained.
Billy Kingery, the Soil Survey Liaison for Mississippi State University detailed what industries will benefit from the information which can be found conveniently in their online National Conservation Resource Service database.
"They run the range of interest that homeowners may have, farmers may have, businesses and it deals with things even down to the level of parks and recreations," Kingery said.
Johnson said their work will continue as they hope to help people make sound educated decisions regarding land-use management planning.
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