Comparisons of Soil ECa Maps to an Order 1 Soil Survey for a Central Iowa Field

摘要

Historically, National Cooperative Soil Surveys have been a satisfactory tool for a variety of land management applications. However, these surveys were designed for management decisions made at the field level, over areas of several acres. In a worldthat is growing increasingly concerned with using the earth's resources to their fullest potential, there is a growing demand for more accurate, faster, and labor efficient practices in soil mapping (Lund and Christy, 1998; Batte, 2000). Apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) mapping is a technique that is being evaluated for its usefulness in soil mapping practices. Soil conductivity mapping is a relatively inexpensive and labor efficient operation (McNeil, 1980). Information that can potentially be derived from this measurement includes depth and texture of soils, water content, salinity, clay content, nutrient levels, organic matter content, and cation exchange capacity (Olson, 2000; Sudduth et al., 2001).