<aside> ❄️ Overyield’s Suitability Layer provide users with a better understanding of their land’s productive potential by way of various crop, soil, and climate heat-maps. The following article describes the underlying algorithms for these maps while citing each crop map’s data sources.

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Contents:

Basics

In generating Suitability maps for the continental US, Overyield cross-references a given crop’s environmental preferences with a selected parcel’s soil and climate characteristics, obtained through USGS and NRCS datasets.

These datasets indicate a parcel’s pH, depth to restrictive layer (i.e. bedrock), depth to the water table, flooding frequency, slope percentage, drainage class, hydric rating, and soil surface texture.

Calculations

For each soil and climate parameter, potential values realizable across the continental US are pre-defined, given as ranges. Take, for example, the table below, which lists potential slope values within our algorithm. These values run the gamut from 0-3% to 100-1000%.

For each parameter, a crop’s suitability is then determined by assigning an acceptability score to individual ranges, depending on the crop’s preferences. In the given example, a crop preferring a slight slope achieved a score of 5 for the 3-8% range, in contrast to scores of 3, 0, and an arbitrary negative number —in this case -100— for slopes that are less suitable or unsuitable for that crop.

A color classification system is then applied to these scores, with high suitability scores represented by deep green, and the low suitability scores represented by red.

Three additional classifications, represented by varying shades of grey, are unsuitable due to land use and/or environmental factors.

Crop data sources

Parcel Data

• United States Geological Survey
• Natural Resources Conservation Service

American Elderberry

• North Carolina State Extension
• University of Louisiana Monroe
• University of Vermont
• Plants for a Future