Holdrege Silt Loam: The Nebraska State Soil

The typical pedon in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's official description lies in a cultivated field two miles northwest of Holdrege. Holdrege soils are very deep and well drained, formed in calcareous loess on uplands of 0 to 15 percent slope, and they reach into north-central Kansas. Soil scientists class them as fine-silty, mixed, superactive, mesic Typic Argiustolls. Almost all are cultivated and much is irrigated, for corn, sorghum and wheat. Severely eroded Holdrege soils no longer classify as Mollisols and must be recorrelated to a new series.

What the plaque says

Holdrege Silt Loam The Nebraska State Soil Soils in the Holdrege series are recognized by features of their "profile" created by horizontal layers that are the result of the prairie environment. Holdrege soils exist on 1.8 million acres of landscape in central Nebraska that is the result of geologic processes operating over tens of thousands of years. The soils formed under mixed grasses, in a climate where moisture stress is common, but where enough movement of water through the profile has resulted in downward movement of clays and lime. These processes have led to a soil with thick, dark-colored topsoil, clay-enriched subsoil, and a substratum that contains free lime. Holdrege soils were initially found during the soil survey of Phelps County in 1917. Their natural fertility, desirable tilth, and the landscape on which they exist join with irrigation and skillful farm management to provide a valuable agricultural resource. The legislature designated Holdrege Silt Loam as the Nebraska State Soil in 1979. This is a soil of which Nebraskans can be proud and one that we should conserve because it must sustain our agriculture for generations to come. Landmark Implement, Inc. Tri-Basin NRD Nebraska State Historical Society, 2012 Nebraska Society of Professional Soil Scientists

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Kearny State Historical Park — 23 mi
  The 1848 army post on the Platte, built on a strip of Pawnee land bought for $2,000 in goods, where emigrant wagons passed by the thousand and only the cottonwoods outlasted the fort.

More markers nearby

• Phelps County — 1.7 mi
• First Site of Bethel Lutheran Church and Cemetery — 4.1 mi
• Site of Old Sacramento — 6.6 mi
• Funk, Nebraska — 6.8 mi