Antigo Soil Series

Antigo soil is defined by a feature called the glossic horizon — a zone where the pale, leached E layer sends finger-like tongues down into the reddish-brown clay subsoil below it. This distinctive pattern, visible when you cut a trench, is rare enough in U.S. soils that it gives Antigo its taxonomic identity as a Glossudalf.

The soil formed from glacial outwash — sand and gravel washed ahead of the Wisconsin Glacier as it retreated about 10,000 years ago. The flat to gently rolling terrain it left behind gave northern Wisconsin its broad, farmable plains, and Antigo soil is the ground those farms sit on.

Wisconsin designated the Antigo series as the state soil in 1983, making it one of the first states in the country to establish an official soil. The push came from soil scientists and the Wisconsin Association of Conservation Districts, who wanted a symbol that reflected the state's glacial landscape and agricultural identity.

Antigo was selected because it covers hundreds of thousands of acres across northern Wisconsin's dairy and forest belt and because its glacial origin connects directly to the landscape history that shaped the state. No other series combines that reach with the distinctive glossic profile.

The series is named after the city of Antigo in Langlade County, the county seat of Wisconsin's northern forest region. USDA soil scientists established the type location in Langlade County, where the series was first formally described.

Dig into Antigo soil and you move through several distinct worlds. The surface is dark and spongy from organic matter. Below that is a pale, almost colorless layer where rain has stripped the iron away. Then comes the most unusual part: a zone where pale gray fingers reach down into the reddish-brown clay — the glossic horizon. Deeper still is a firm clay layer, and beneath everything is the coarse sand and gravel the glacier left behind.

Antigo soil covers the flat to gently rolling glaciated outwash plains of northern Wisconsin, roughly from Marathon County northward through the lake-dotted forest belt to Vilas and Forest counties near the Michigan border. It grows at elevations of 1,200 to 1,800 feet in a frigid climate with cold winters and short summers.

Langlade County holds the type location and some of the highest concentrations of the series. Lincoln, Taylor, Price, and Oneida counties also have extensive Antigo soil — the core of Wisconsin's northern dairy and timber region.

Dairy farming is the dominant use of Antigo soil. The well-drained, deep profile supports corn for silage, alfalfa, and mixed hay — the three crops that feed Wisconsin's dairy herds. Langlade and Lincoln counties sit in the heart of the state's milk-producing region, and Antigo soil underlies most of their farmland.

Potatoes grow on Antigo soil in central Wisconsin where the sandy outwash texture drains fast and the loose structure makes harvest easy. Snap beans and sweet corn also grow on flatter Antigo sites with good drainage.

Where Antigo soil has not been cleared, sugar maple, yellow birch, white spruce, and balsam fir form the northern hardwood and boreal forests characteristic of Langlade and Vilas counties. Maple syrup production and timber harvesting occur on forested Antigo hillsides.