United States Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service
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Query by User Pedon ID


Although many variations exist, the standard form of the user pedon ID is: LnnSS-fff-####

where:

L = Project Type Identification Character (S, C, R, I, or O),

  • S—Standard,
  • C—Characterization,
  • R—Reference,
  • I—Investigation,
  • O—Other,

nn = Two (or four) digit number for the year the pedon was sampled,

SS = Two letters indicating Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) identifier for state or country,

fff = Three digit FIPS code for county (these codes can be viewed using the site area option), and

#### = Alphanumeric text field for assigned county pedon identification.

For additional information regarding the user pedon ID, see the “Field Book for Describing and Sampling Soils, Version 3.0.”

User pedon ID examples: S04NE-153-00109, 78MN113022, Anderson Site10, CA041191-S2, Barton Flats (BF) Pit 1, and 87CA019041G. This field may take many variations, and a query will work only if an exact (including spaces and dashes) user pedon ID is entered.

Note that confusion between pedon ID and site ID is common. Both are displayed on the characterization data sheet. Also, remember that you can only enter one user pedon ID per query.

When entering a query, the asterisk (*) character can be used as a wildcard to replace any character or group of characters. For example, *NE* or *NE*109. Please be careful if using the asterisk character. An overly broad query can request the complete database.

If you do not know the exact user pedon ID, we suggest you query by country, state, and county. This method provides an array of data from the area of interest. The advanced query method is also available, but it requires more knowledge to use. If you want to use the advanced query method, we suggest you review the user manual. This website is optimized for Windows® Internet Explorer.




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