Management zones based on corn yield and soil physical attributes

Abstract

The need to increase the yield and thus the income of farmers and provide food for the growing population requires the search for more efficient and innovative ways for growing, such as management by zones or site-specific practices. This knowledge improves the process of decision making in agricultural production for better crop management. The aim of this study was to determine zones of agricultural management based on corn yield and its relationship with some physical attributes in an Oxisol on the Eastern plains of Colombia. For this, the soil sampling was done in a regular grid whose sampling points were spaced every 70 m, in an area of 37 ha. The studied soil attributes were penetration resistance (PR), texture, total porosity (TP), macropores, mesopores, micropores, saturated hydraulic conductivity (KS), bulk density (BD), particle density (PD), soil water content (SW) and yield. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, geostatistics and multivariate techniques. From these results, management zones were defined. The soil physical attributes presented high variability in the different regions of the sampled area. The methods used for characterizing the management zones, allowed for identifying which area presented the best physical characteristics, an area that also showed the highest production of maize, similar in the different methods that were studied.

Keywords

• soil management
• Zea mays L.
• spatial distribution
• precision agriculture
• oxisols
• Eastern Plains