Integration of PCA and Fuzzy Clustering for Delineation of Soil Management Zones and Cost-Efficiency Analysis in a Citrus Plantation

Mojtaba Zeraatpisheh,Ming Xu,Mostafa Emadi,Tengfei Li,Esmaeil Bakhshandeh

doi:10.3390/su12145809

Mojtaba Zeraatpisheh, Ming Xu + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145809

Copy DOI

Abstract

Citrus spp. are one of the most important commercial crops with global marketing potential in the world, as in Iran. A soil management zone (MZ) as an appropriate approach is necessary to achieve sustainable production, along with improving soil management and increasing economic benefits in the commercial citrus plantations of northern Iran. As the first report, the biological and terrain attributes along with the physicochemical properties (57 soil samples, 0–30 cm) were used for MZ delineation using the integration of principal component analysis (PCA) and the fuzzy c-means clustering methods. An economic analysis based on the MZ results was also performed to determine the changes in each MZ using a relative cost (RC) value. The high correlation between soil properties and terrain attributes and the considerable spatial variation of these factors in the study area call for site-specific nutrient management. The optimal number of MZs was six and there was a significant heterogeneity variation among different MZs. The ranking of the MZs were MZ5 > MZ2 > MZ6 > MZ1 > MZ3 > MZ4 based on higher soil quality and lower costs per tree. The MZ4, MZ3, MZ1, MZ6, and MZ2 required 34.4, 30.6, 29.4, 9.77, and 9.44% more costs than MZ5 (as reference MZ) for achieving similar productivity, respectively. Therefore, this simple and cost-effective approach could be an initial step to utilize fertilizers site-specifically for data-scarce areas and reduce the soil property variability within the delineated MZs, which is fundamental for precision agriculture management.

Highlights

Citrus is one of the most important commercial crops with global marketing potential, which is grown across the world, in tropical and subtropical countries [1,2]
Hosseini et al [49] reported that surface disturbance increased the soil pore distribution, which could lead to a decrease in bulk density (BD)
According to the optimum ranges for the measured soil properties and topography attributes proposed by Kangarshahi and Akhlaghi Amiri [27], based on mean values, no limitation was observed for BD, electrical conductivity (EC), cation exchange capacity (CEC), Kav, Pav, and elevation

Summary

Introduction

Citrus is one of the most important commercial crops with global marketing potential, which is grown across the world, in tropical and subtropical countries [1,2]. Annual global production of fresh citrus fruits has been growing in the last several decades, from 30 thousand tons in the 1960s to 130,947 thousand tons in 2015 [4]. The world’s seventh largest citrus-producing country, followed by Brazil, China, United States, Mexico, India, and Spain, has an annual production of 3739 thousand tons of fresh citrus fruits from an area of ~230,000 ha [4]. The growing demands for crop products in the 21st century have increased the request for new methods to evaluate the soil fertility status in an economical and environmentally friendly manner [5,6]. The knowledge of spatial soil fertility status is important to intensive agricultural practices for sustainable agriculture [6,7]

Methods

Results

Conclusion