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Soil Information for All Uses <br />Suitabilities and Limitations for Use <br />The Suitabilities and Limitations for Use section includes various soil interpretations <br />displayed as thematic maps with a summary table for the soil map units in the selected <br />area of interest. A single value or rating for each map unit is generated by aggregating <br />the interpretive ratings of individual map unit components. This aggregation process <br />is defined for each interpretation. <br />Vegetative Productivity <br />Vegetative productivity includes estimates of potential vegetative production for a <br />variety of land uses, including cropland, forestland, hayland, pastureland, horticulture <br />and rangeland. In the underlying database, some states maintain crop yield data by <br />individual map unit component. Other states maintain the data at the map unit level. <br />Attributes are included for both, although only one or the other is likely to contain data <br />for any given geographic area. For other land uses, productivity data is shown only at <br />the map unit component level. Examples include potential crop yields under irrigated <br />and nonirrigated conditions, forest productivity, forest site index, and total rangeland <br />production under of normal, favorable and unfavorable conditions. <br />Range Production (Normal Year) <br />Total range production is the amount of vegetation that can be expected to grow <br />annually in a well managed area that is supporting the potential natural plant <br />community. It includes all vegetation, whether or not it is palatable to grazing animals. <br />It includes the current year's growth of leaves, twigs, and fruits of woody plants. It does <br />not include the increase in stem diameter of trees and shrubs. It is expressed in pounds <br />per acre of air-dry vegetation. In a normal year, growing conditions are about average. <br />Yields are adjusted to a common percent of air -dry moisture content. <br />In areas that have similar climate and topography, differences in the kind and amount <br />of vegetation produced on rangeland are closely related to the kind of soil. Effective <br />management is based on the relationship between the soils and vegetation and water. <br />19 <br />