The global threat of environmental problems cannot be reliably assessed withoutmethods for rapid measurement of soil quality. Here, we demonstrate rapid and simultaneous prediction of a number of soil quality attributes for over 1000 Africansoils from measurement of light reflectance spectra. User prediction accuracy was70–88% for soil carbon, clay, and cation retention capacity, and user sensitivity was>77% for several widely-used soil fertility capability tests. Site-level, management-induced variation in soil properties and crop yields were also predicted. These advances will greatly improve scientists’ ability to assess soil problems using calibrations based on a small number of selected soils.
Publication year
2001
Authors
Language
English
Keywords
crop production, reflectance, soil, soil chemicophysical properties
