When I finally had a chance to buy a half-acre plot near my current rental, I was so focused on price per acre and proximity to my markets that I barely looked at what had been grown there for the past decade. The seller mentioned 'row crops' and I moved on. Big mistake.
Turns out the parcel had been in continuous corn for at least eight years with heavy herbicide inputs. The first season I planted, my carrot germination was garbage and my brassicas stalled out completely. Soil tests eventually revealed compaction layers at six inches and residual chemistry that took two full seasons of cover cropping, deep compost applications, and patience to even begin correcting.
I should have asked for field-by-field crop history going back at least ten years before making an offer, not after closing. Conventional wisdom says test the soil, but a single test doesn't tell you what herbicide carryover is lurking or how deep the compaction runs.
For market gardeners buying small plots, tillage and input history should be a dealbreaker category, not an afterthought. Who here has actually walked away from a purchase because of crop history?