Hamada Abdelrahman, PhD
Associate Professor of Soil Chemistry and Fertility
Soil Science Dept., Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza 12613 Egypt
Delineation of homogeneous field zones based on soil fertility indices in a durum wheat - chickpea rotation
- Citation:
- Delineation of homogeneous field zones based on soil fertility indices in a durum wheat - chickpea rotation, Diacono, M., Abdelrahman H. M., Cocozza C., Benedetto De D., Troccoli A., Rubino P., and Castrignanò A. , Proceedings of The 8th European Conference on Precision Agriculture "Precision Agriculture 2011", ISBN 978-80-904830-5-7, Czech Centre for Science and Society, Prague, Czech Republic, (2011) copy at www.tinyurl.com/y6fz35ga
Abstract:
One of the most cost-effective approaches in precision farming is the managing of relatively contiguous homogeneous zones in the field. Soil samples were collected in a 3 ha field of the CRA-Cereal Research Centre’s experimental farm located in Foggia (southern Italy). Soil carbon mineralization indices and physical-chemical properties were interpolated by using the geostatistical techniques of kriging and co-kriging. The application of a clustering algorithm, based on a non-parametric density estimate, to the (co)kriged surface variables produced the subdivision of the field into four distinct classes. This information can be useful for the site-specific supply of nutrient inputs, in order to match crop requirements with intrinsic patterns of soil fertility.