Life Sciences Commons^™

Relationship Between Spectral Data From An Aerial Image And Soil Organic Matter And Phosphorus Levels, Gary E. Varvel, Michael R. Schlemmer, James S. Schepers

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Early ventures into site-specific management involved fertilizer management decisions based on soil chemical properties characterized by some form of grid sampling. This is both labor and capital intensive and practitioners quickly began investigating other methods to get a measure of spatial variability. Aerial photographs, which were mainly used to evaluate and assess crop status, allow for the collection of whole-field data at relatively low cost. Our objective is to determine what relationships exist between aerial spectral data and intensive grid soil test results and whether this information can be used to improve future soil sampling strategies. Soil-test organic matter (OM) …