Greenwich Soil Series

Greenwich soil sits on flat to gently sloping uplands across the Delmarva Peninsula. The surface is a brown loam rich enough in silt to hold moisture and nutrients through the growing season. Underneath, older coarser sediments provide the drainage that keeps roots healthy.

Delaware soil scientists designate Greenwich as prime farmland — the best category a soil can receive. That rating means the combination of texture, drainage, and climate produces the highest crop yields with the least management effort.

The push to name Delaware's state soil came from Representative V. George Carey, who sponsored House Bill 436 in the Delaware General Assembly. He had an unusual set of allies: students from Fifer Middle School.

The students built Greenwich soil mini-monoliths — vertical slices of soil sealed in clear cases showing each layer — and hand-delivered them to legislators. The monoliths made the abstract idea of soil designation concrete and visible, and they helped move the bill forward.

Governor Thomas R. Carper signed House Bill 436 on April 20, 2000. The stated goal was public education: to draw attention to soils, soil conservation, and how Delaware's agricultural economy depends on the land under its fields.

Greenwich soil takes its name not from a place in Delaware but from Greenwich, a small historic town on the Cohansey River in Cumberland County, New Jersey, where the series was first mapped and described.

Greenwich soil has two distinct chapters. The top 20 inches or so formed from silt-rich material laid down by wind and water across the coastal plain. Below that is older, coarser sand and gravel deposited by ancient rivers and the sea. The change between layers is called a lithologic discontinuity, and you can see it in the soil profile where the texture shifts abruptly from loam to coarse sand.

Greenwich soil is found in all three Delaware counties — New Castle, Kent, and Sussex — on the flat to gently rolling uplands of the Coastal Plain. It is one of the few state soils that covers the entire state rather than being confined to one region.

The Delmarva Peninsula, which Delaware shares with Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, is where Greenwich soil is most extensive. The same series also appears in adjacent parts of Maryland and New Jersey.

Slopes on Greenwich soil rarely exceed five percent. That flat topography, combined with the soil's texture and drainage, makes it easy to till, easy to irrigate, and suitable for almost any Coastal Plain crop.

Greenwich soil supports the full range of Delmarva Peninsula agriculture — grain corn, soybeans, wheat, and vegetables. The prime farmland rating means these fields produce reliable yields across different seasons and different crops without special soil amendments.

Truck farming — growing vegetables for fresh market — has a long history on Greenwich soil. Proximity to East Coast cities made Delmarva vegetable crops valuable, and Greenwich loam's workable texture made cultivation practical for small-scale farms.

Where Greenwich soil is not farmed, it supports mixed hardwood and pine forest typical of the Atlantic Coastal Plain — oaks, sweetgum, loblolly pine, and Virginia pine. The well-drained surface allows a mix of species that would not survive in wetter soils nearby.