Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones

Aim of study: In precision agriculture, the definition of Application Zones (AZs) in agricultural areas consists in delimiting the area in subareas with similar characteristics, using soil chemical attributes. To such end, the use of clustering methods is common. Therefore, the AZs make up a databa...

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Main Authors: Tamara C. MALTAURO, Luciana P. C. GUEDES, Miguel A. URIBE-OPAZO, Letícia E. D. CANTON
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria 2023-05-01
Series:Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research
Subjects:
Online Access:https://revistas.inia.es/index.php/sjar/article/view/19521
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author Tamara C. MALTAURO
Luciana P. C. GUEDES
Miguel A. URIBE-OPAZO
Letícia E. D. CANTON
author_facet Tamara C. MALTAURO
Luciana P. C. GUEDES
Miguel A. URIBE-OPAZO
Letícia E. D. CANTON
author_sort Tamara C. MALTAURO
collection DOAJ
description Aim of study: In precision agriculture, the definition of Application Zones (AZs) in agricultural areas consists in delimiting the area in subareas with similar characteristics, using soil chemical attributes. To such end, the use of clustering methods is common. Therefore, the AZs make up a database that can be used to target future soil sampling, thus seeking a possible sample reduction. The objective of this paper is to assess the acquisition of sample configurations, with reduced sample size, contained in application zones generated by spatial multivariate clustering. The sampling protocol proposed in this work evaluated five clustering methods (C-means, Fanny, K-means, Mcquitty, and Ward) for the creation of AZs, and, through these AZs, to obtain reduced sample configurations with 50% and 75% of the initial sampling points. Area of study: Commercial agricultural area, Cascavel, Brazil. Material and methods: Data of the soil chemical attributes from a commercial agricultural area were used, referring to three soybean harvest years (2013-2014; 2014-2015; and 2015-2016). The clustering methods considered a dissimilarity matrix that aggregates the information about the Euclidean distance between the sample elements and the spatial dependence structure of the attributes. Main results: The results indicated division of the agricultural area into two or three AZs for the aforementioned harvest years, considering the K-means method. Comparing all the reduced sample configurations with the initial one, it was observed that the one proportionally reduced by 25% was the most effective to obtain a reduced sample configuration. Research highlights: The sampling protocol using AZs showed that it is possible to reduce the sample size.
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spelling doaj.art-b94b77b428a946a28eb7b6e3b5247bc72023-05-31T10:11:27ZengInstituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y AlimentariaSpanish Journal of Agricultural Research2171-92922023-05-0121210.5424/sjar/2023212-19521Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zonesTamara C. MALTAURO0Luciana P. C. GUEDES1Miguel A. URIBE-OPAZO2Letícia E. D. CANTON3Western Paraná State University, 2069 Universitária Street, 85819-110, Cascavel, PR, BrazilWestern Paraná State University, 2069 Universitária Street, 85819-110, Cascavel, PR, BrazilWestern Paraná State University, 2069 Universitária Street, 85819-110, Cascavel, PR, BrazilWestern Paraná State University, 2069 Universitária Street, 85819-110, Cascavel, PR, Brazil Aim of study: In precision agriculture, the definition of Application Zones (AZs) in agricultural areas consists in delimiting the area in subareas with similar characteristics, using soil chemical attributes. To such end, the use of clustering methods is common. Therefore, the AZs make up a database that can be used to target future soil sampling, thus seeking a possible sample reduction. The objective of this paper is to assess the acquisition of sample configurations, with reduced sample size, contained in application zones generated by spatial multivariate clustering. The sampling protocol proposed in this work evaluated five clustering methods (C-means, Fanny, K-means, Mcquitty, and Ward) for the creation of AZs, and, through these AZs, to obtain reduced sample configurations with 50% and 75% of the initial sampling points. Area of study: Commercial agricultural area, Cascavel, Brazil. Material and methods: Data of the soil chemical attributes from a commercial agricultural area were used, referring to three soybean harvest years (2013-2014; 2014-2015; and 2015-2016). The clustering methods considered a dissimilarity matrix that aggregates the information about the Euclidean distance between the sample elements and the spatial dependence structure of the attributes. Main results: The results indicated division of the agricultural area into two or three AZs for the aforementioned harvest years, considering the K-means method. Comparing all the reduced sample configurations with the initial one, it was observed that the one proportionally reduced by 25% was the most effective to obtain a reduced sample configuration. Research highlights: The sampling protocol using AZs showed that it is possible to reduce the sample size. https://revistas.inia.es/index.php/sjar/article/view/19521clusteringdissimilarity matrixprecision agriculturesampling design.
spellingShingle Tamara C. MALTAURO
Luciana P. C. GUEDES
Miguel A. URIBE-OPAZO
Letícia E. D. CANTON
Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research
clustering
dissimilarity matrix
precision agriculture
sampling design.
title Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
title_full Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
title_fullStr Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
title_full_unstemmed Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
title_short Multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
title_sort multivariate spatial sample reduction of soil chemical attributes by means of application zones
topic clustering
dissimilarity matrix
precision agriculture
sampling design.
url https://revistas.inia.es/index.php/sjar/article/view/19521
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