Proximal soil sensing system for paddy field variability mapping

Different types of proximal soil sensor are used in precision agriculture to map the apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) to identify the within field soil variability. Most of the work related to map soil properties in precision agriculture has been conducted in upland crops and not a single work is reported to map the soil properties in a paddy field. Therefore, the present study was conducted to check the potentiality of EM38 proximal soil sensor to map the key soil properties of a paddy field in the alluvial plain of Bangladesh. ECa was measured by EM38 in two measurement mode viz. Horizontal and Vertical dipole mode under dry and wet conditions of the field. Almost all the topsoil (0-30 cm) properties showed no correlation with ECa. But the majority of the subsoil (30-60 cm) and all the deep soil (60-90 cm) properties show significant correlations with ECa values. However, among the measurement conditions, it is observed that EM38 in both Horizontal and Vertical dipole mode under dry condition shows higher potentiality to map the deep soil properties compare to the wet conditions.