LOCATION BRANFORD CT+NYEstablished Series
TAXONOMIC CLASS: Coarse-loamy over sandy or sandy-skeletal, mixed, active, mesic Typic Dystrudepts
TYPICAL PEDON: Branford silt loam - cultivated field on a 2 percent slope at an elevation of about 80 feet. (Colors are for moist soils unless otherwise noted.)
Ap--0 to 8 inches; dark reddish brown (5YR 3/3) silt loam, light reddish brown (5YR 6/3) dry; weak medium granular structure; friable; common very fine and fine roots; 10 percent gravel; moderately acid; clear smooth boundary. (6 to 12 inches thick)
Bw1--8 to 18 inches; reddish brown (5YR 4/4) loam; weak medium subangular blocky structure; friable; few fine roots; common earthworm holes and worm casts; 10 percent gravel; strongly acid; gradual wavy boundary.
Bw2--18 to 24 inches; reddish brown (5YR 4/4) loam; weak coarse subangular blocky structure; very friable; few fine roots; 14 percent gravel; strongly acid; clear wavy boundary. (Combined thickness of the Bw horizon is 12 to 30 inches)
2C--24 to 65 inches; reddish brown (5YR 4/3) stratified sand and gravel; single grain; loose; 25 percent gravel; strongly acid.
TYPE LOCATION: New Haven County, Connecticut; town of Branford, 600 feet west of the intersection of Connecticut Route 139 and the New Haven Trap Rock Company railroad. USGS Branford topographic quadrangle, latitude 41 degrees 18 minutes 07 seconds N., longitude 72 degrees 46 minutes 42 seconds W., NAD 27.
RANGE IN CHARACTERISTICS: Thickness of the solum ranges from 20 to 40 inches and typically corresponds to the depth of contrasting sand or sand and gravel. Rock fragments, mainly rounded pebbles, range from 0 to 30 percent in the solum and from 10 to 65 percent in individual layers of the substratum. Unless limed, the soil is very strongly acid to moderately acid throughout.
The Ap horizon has hue of 5YR to 10YR, value of 3 or 4 and chroma of 2 to 4. Dry value is 6 or more. Undisturbed pedons have a thin A horizon with value of 2 or 3 and chroma of 1 to 3. The Ap or A horizon is silt loam, very fine sandy loam, loam or fine sandy loam. It has weak or moderate granular structure and is friable or very friable.
The Bw horizon has hue of 5YR, value of 3 to 5 and chroma of 3 to 6. Fine earth texture is silt loam, very fine sandy loam, loam or fine sandy loam with less than 50 percent fine or coarser sand. The Bw horizon has weak subangular blocky or granular structure or it is massive. Consistence is friable or very friable.
The 2C horizon has hue of 2.5YR or 5YR, value and chroma of 3 to 6. The horizon is commonly stratified sand and gravel. Texture of individual layers ranges from coarse sand or sand to loamy fine sand.
COMPETING SERIES: The Agawam, Barnstable, Haven, and Narragansett soils are currently in the same family.
Agawam and Haven soils have hue of 7.5YR or yellower. The Barnstable and Narragansett series are in a similar family. Barnstable soils formed in glacial till overlying outwash and have subangular or angular rock fragments larger than pebble-sized throughout. Narrangansett do not have stratified sand and gravel in the substratum and have hue of 7.5YR or yellower in the B horizon.
GEOGRAPHIC SETTING: Branford soils are nearly level to strongly sloping soils on terraces and outwash plains. Slope commonly ranges from 0 to 8 percent but the range includes 0 to 15 percent. The soils formed in loamy over stratified sandy and gravelly glaciofluvial materials derived mainly from red sedimentary rocks and basalt. Mean annual temperature is 45 to 52 degrees F., mean annual precipitation is 38 to 50 inches and the growing season is 140 to 185 days.
GEOGRAPHICALLY ASSOCIATED SOILS: These are the Bash, Berlin, Cheshire, Ellington, Hartford, Holyoke, Ludlow, Manchester, Menlo, Penwood, Raypol, Raynham, Walpole, Watchaug, Wethersfield, Wilbraham and Yalesville soils on nearby landscapes. Bash soils are somewhat poorly drained soils on flood plains. Berlin soils are fine-textured soils on glaciolacustrine terraces. Cheshire, Holyoke, Ludlow, Menlo, Watchaug, Wethersfield, Wilbraham and Yalesville soils are on nearby till plains, hills, and drumlins. Ellington soils are moderately well drained. Well drained Hartford soils, excessively drained Penwood soils, and somewhat excessively drained Manchester soils are terrace associates. Raypol, Raynham and Walpole soils are poorly drained soils in low areas.
DRAINAGE AND PERMEABILITY: Well drained. Surface runoff is negligible to medium. Saturated hydraulic conductivity is moderately high or high in the solum and high or very high in the substratum.
USE AND VEGETATION: Much of the acreage is used for cultivated crops, hay and pasture. Common crops are silage corn, vegetables, tobacco and nursery stock. Some areas are wooded or used for community development. Common trees are white, black and red oak, hickory, gray birch, white pine, hemlock and white ash.
DISTRIBUTION AND EXTENT: Late Pleistocene terraces in the Connecticut River Valley of Connecticut (MLRA 145) and in extreme southern New York (MLRA 144A). The series is of moderate extent.
MLRA SOIL SURVEY REGIONAL OFFICE (MO) RESPONSIBLE: Amherst, Massachusetts
SERIES ESTABLISHED: Hartford County, Connecticut, 1959.
REMARKS: Diagnostic horizons and features in this pedon include:
1. Ochric epipedon from 0 to 8 inches.
2. Cambic horizon from 8 to 24 inches (Bw1 and Bw2 horizons).
3. Particle-size control section from 10 to 40 inches that is coarse-loamy to 24 inches and contrasting sandy or sandy-skeletal below.
4. Mesic soil temperature and udic soil moisture regimes.