Pedology in Precision Agriculture from a Brazilian context

Abstract

Precision agriculture (PA) is advancing in Brazil concerning several crops, mainly for medium to large-sized farms, occasionally evolving towards automation and digital agriculture. Soil knowledge is fundamental in this process, requiring studies on a detailed scale greater than 1:5,000, and demanding overcoming soil taxonomy concepts. This review article presents and discusses the most effective methods of PA from a soil management perspective, inducing advances for farming and producers in Brazil. Topography, electrical conductivity, proximal and remote sensing, and productivity work outlined soil mapping and their relationship to soil. The modeling of topographic variables through artificial intelligence offers new perspectives. The soil's apparent electrical conductivity can work at various depths, providing information about several pedological parameters. Finally, proximal, and remote sensing techniques could simulate different soil attributes, potentially integrating productivity data on studying plant attributes. Despite some differences, the four themes are complementary, and integrating data through geographic information systems results in a consistent option for defining management zones.

Keywords

• soils
• electric conductivity
• relief
• remote sensing
• productivity
• precision farming