A protocol for converting qualitative point soil pit survey data into continuous soil property maps
James A. Taylor A B and Budiman Minasny AA Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, McMillan Bld A05, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
B Corresponding author. Email: james.taylor@usyd.edu.au
Australian Journal of Soil Research 44(5) 543-550 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR06060
Submitted: 6 December 2005 Accepted: 15 May 2006 Published: 4 August 2006
Abstract
Vineyard soil surveys to date have focused on presenting soil data in point rather than raster format. This is due to the recording of both numeric and categorical variables. A protocol, including a lookup table to transform linguistic texture values into particle size distributions, to convert point data into continuous raster maps is presented. The resulting maps are coherent with vineyard knowledge and provide a strong spatial representation of soil variability within the vineyard. Validation with an independent dataset shows an error of ~10% in prediction; however, some of this can be attributed to errors in the geo-rectification of old data. Raster maps allow the survey data to be incorporated into computer systems to better model vineyard and irrigation designs and are more readily used in day-to-day vineyard management decisions.
Additional keywords: soil mapping, pedotransfer functions, vineyards.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the in-kind support of the vineyard manages and staff at Richmond Grove Vineyard, Pokolbin Estate Vineyard, and Capital Vineyards for their assistance. This work was funded by the Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture and The University of Sydney.
Disclaimer
Geo-rectification and map generation can be performed with a wide variety of software. The authors have referenced the software used in this paper to assist readers in understanding the protocol. The authors do not provide any endorsement of the software used over other software.
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