Three proximal sensors to estimate texture, skeleton and soil water storage in vineyards
Abstract
Proximal sensors are becoming widely used in precision viticulture, due to the quick, easy and non-invasive identification of soil spatial variability. The apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) is the main parameter measured by sensors, which is correlated to many factors, like soil water content, salinity, clay content and mineralogy, rock fragments, bulk density, and porosity. This study compares three different sensors to delineate soil boundaries and estimate clay, skeleton content and available water (AWC) in a vineyard of the Chianti region (Central Italy). All three sensors produced ECa maps with similar pattern. Although the correlations between ECa, clay and skeleton content were usually moderate, the correlations between ECa and some important hydrological parameters, namely field capacity (FC), wilting point (WP) and available water capacity (AWC), was very high.
DOI:
Issue: Terroir 2010
Type: Article
Authors
(1) C.R.A.-A.B.P., Research Center for Agrobiology and Pedology, Piazza M.D’Azeglio, 30, 50121, Firenze, Italy
(2) University of Turin, Earth Science Department, Turin, Italy
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Keywords
Soil, precision viticulture, geophysics, EMI sensors, apparent electrical conductivity