crop insurance "soil factors"

[freewheat]

I have asked a few times now at the crop insurance office, what is the difference between E soil, and G soil, etc. The answer has always been clear as mud, and obscure, like they don't even know or something.

So do any of you guys know the factors behind the soil c;lasses for crop insurance purposes?

[fjlip]

E is rated better than G initially in area averages. Not sure if that matters after you have yield history.

[bluefargo]

For sure the lower the letter the better the soil. I'm sure it is based, loosely or otherwise, on the soil classification. But you are right once you have a history for a particular crop the soil rating is irrelevant.... Unless you grow a crop you have not previously grown.
That is my take anyway.

[freewheat]

I have four different soils supposedly, with my high letters, supposedly poorer soil out producing my low letters. I get slight yield coverage changes on the different soil letters, and so was wondering what specifically they based it on is all.

I am a firm believer that sometimes "better soil" does not always translate into yield. Like when high assessed land is always a lower yielder than the "poorer" stuff.

[bluefargo]

Soils with a higher clay content will almost always rate higher than sandy soils. Higher clay soils have much greater ability to store moisture - not an impprtant attribute lately.
For assessment purposes besides soil texture, things like topography, rocks, salinity also are factors.
It's true that lower assessed land can out yield higher assessed land at times. I have heard that comment often.
I think crop insurance has used their letter system since their beginning 50 years ago.
There must be someone in their outfit that knows something about it. Likely the front line people do not get a lot of question on it.

[freewheat]

Blue fargo, you touched the whole point of the need for modernization, and the gist of my original question. I am a soil nut, I assume they are basing this on soil capability, but to ask point blank and not get an answer is ridiculous. I mainly want to know whether they think in todays world with farming practices having changed dramatically, if some of this soil lettering can be changed for yield purposes.

I have fairly uniform textures on my farm, but with crop insurance, my lightest land is the best land according to them. A soils map of our RM says differently.