Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

SoilByCounty is a data-journalism site. Our job is to take the soil statistics that the federal government already publishes — county-by-county pH, texture, drainage, organic matter, hydrologic group — and present them in a form that someone planning a garden, comparing land for a home or farm, or researching soil trends can actually use. We are not a professional agronomic or geotechnical resource. We do not diagnose soil problems, prescribe treatments, or recommend specific products, and we do not publish engineering or agricultural advice.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

SoilByCounty is published and edited by Logan Johnson, Founder & Data Editor. Logan designs the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. Logan is not a soil scientist, agronomist, or licensed geotechnical engineer, and SoilByCounty does not present itself as a professional soil-consulting resource. Logan's role is the data-editor role: ensure statistics on this site match the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into professional claim territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces, when published, carry an explicit byline naming the writer and — where relevant — a named subject-matter reviewer (for example, a soil scientist or agronomist). The byline appears at the top of the article.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level statistics on this site come from primary government sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active sources are:

• USDA SSURGO (Soil Survey Geographic Database) — the most detailed soil survey dataset available in the United States, maintained by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). Provides soil pH, texture (sand/silt/clay percentages), organic matter, available water capacity, hydraulic conductivity, drainage class, hydrologic group, and dominant soil series for every U.S. county. We use the most recent SSURGO release available through the Soil Data Access (SDA) web service.
• USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM) — published by the USDA Agricultural Research Service in collaboration with Oregon State University. Provides the USDA hardiness zone for each county, which indicates the average annual extreme minimum temperature and helps gardeners and growers determine which plants are most likely to thrive in a given location.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Source datasets are in the public domain (federal works) or published under licenses permitting commercial redistribution with attribution.

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown in the statistics tables on the page. Logan, as Data Editor, reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid causation claims, product recommendations, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate agronomic or engineering advice, treatment recommendations, or diagnostic information.
• Invent statistics, sources, or quotes.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims about soil properties that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation, an outdated soil series — email logan@soilbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How SoilByCounty Is Funded

SoilByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we rank where.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to gardening and soil-amendment product referrals. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties or soil types we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored statistics, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

Underlying data is refreshed annually, on the release schedule of each source (USDA SSURGO releases periodically as new soil surveys are completed; PHZM is updated on a multi-year cycle). Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 14, 2026.