Identification of regional soil quality factors and indicators: II. Northern Mississippi Loess Hills and Palouse Prairie

Diversity of soil series present in a region may hinder identification of soil quality factors and indicators at a regional scale. Our objectives were (i) to identify soil quality factors for a diverse population of soils at the regional scale, (ii) to determine which factors vary significantly with land use, (iii) to select indicators from these factors that can be used with the National Resource Inventory (NRI) for monitoring soil quality, and (iv) to compare these results to a similar study involving only a single Soil series. One hundred eighty-six points representing 75 soil series in the Northern Mississippi Valley Loess Halls and 149 points representing 58 son series in Palouse and Net Perce Prairies were sampled from a statistically representative subset of NRI sample points and analyzed for 20 soil attributes. Factor analysis was used to identify soil quality factors and discriminant analysis was used to identify factors and indicators most sensitive to land use within each region. In the Northern Mississippi Valley Loess Hills, five soil quality factors were identified. Discriminant analysis selected potentially mineralizable N (PMN), microbial biomass C (MBC), warier stable aggregates (WSA), and total organic C (TOC) as the most discriminating attributes between land uses. In the Palouse and Net Perce Prairies, six factors were identified. Discriminant analysis selected TOC and total N as the most discriminating attributes between land uses. The soil quality factors were similar among three of the four regions, but TOC was the only indicator common to all regions for distinguishing among land uses.