>As an adddition, since fox is clever enough to break at first .f. in an expression combined with 'and' moving 'table2.survey_year = cYear' to top seems
> to be more feasible.

That improved it slightly, and I have found that putting everything except 'table2.survey_year = cYear' into the JOIN condition, leaving only the survey_year in the WHERE, seems to be the fastest.

>Instead of join (since it's inner) old style : 'where table2.element = table1.element' could help too. Test and publish results :)

That ran a little longer than the original.

Thanks!