Evaluation of an on-the-go technology for soil pH mapping

Abstract

Since conventional sampling and laboratory soil analysis do not provide a cost effective capability for obtaining geo-referenced measurements with adequate frequency, different on-the-go sensing techniques have been attempted. One such recently commercialized sensing system combines mapping of soil electrical conductivity and pH. The concept of direct measurement of soil pH has allowed for a substantial increase in measurement density. In this publication, soil pH maps, developed using on-the-go technology and obtained for eight production fields in six US states, were compared with corresponding maps derived from grid sampling. It was shown that with certain field conditions, on-the-go mapping can significantly increase the accuracy of soil pH maps and therefore increase the potential profitability of variable rate liming. However, in many instances, these on-the-go measurements need to be calibrated to account for a field-specific bias. After calibration, the overall error estimate for soil pH maps produced using on-the-go measurements was less than 0.3 pH, while non-calibrated on-the-go and conventional field average and grid-sampling maps produced errors greater than 0.4 pH.