The Major Land Resource Area Soil Survey Region Office 11 (MO11) has responsibility for three Land Resource Regions (LRR): Northern Lake States Forest and Forage Region (K); Lake States Fruit, Truck, and Dairy Region (L); and Central Feed Grains and Livestock Region (M). These LRR’s include portions of: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin.           

Federal soil survey activities in the United States began almost one hundred years ago.  Most soil surveys were large scale and general in nature or were single purpose surveys such as those made for conservation planning.  In 1952, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) was assigned leadership responsibility for the production of soil surveys on private lands.  In the 1960’s SCS began what is thought of as the “modern era” of soil surveys.  Modern soil surveys were designed for multiple purposes and were prepared on a photographic base under the auspices of Soil Taxonomy.  This effort to obtain soil surveys on all lands was done in conjunction with other state, local, and federal agencies.  The agencies involved make up the National Cooperative Soil Survey.

The last 30 years have seen little change made in the soil survey program.  The emphasis has been on production: mapping, describing, correlating, classifying, and publishing.  Within Region 11, soil surveys have been completed on about 99.5 percent of private lands and about 75 percent of these surveys have been published.  These data, primarily gathered on a county by county basis by many hands, reflect what was known about soils at the time of the survey.  The older survey reports remain an excellent source of information, but many have become outdated to varying degrees as new information is gained and as demographics, technologies, environmental questions, and intensities of land use change.