Skip to main content
ARS Home » Southeast Area » Stoneville, Mississippi » Crop Production Systems Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #265650
Title: Remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture: a review

Author
item GE, YUFENG - Texas A&M University
item THOMASSON, J - Texas A&M University
item Sui, Ruixiu

Submitted to: Frontiers of Earth Science
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/18/2011
Publication Date: 6/25/2011
Citation: Ge, Y., Thomasson, J.A., Sui, R. 2011. Remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture: a review. Frontiers of Earth Science. 5(3):229-238.

Interpretive Summary: Geo-spatial technologies including geographic information system, global positioning system, and remote sensing are extensively utilized in precision agriculture, with the anticipation to maximize farmers’ profit / investment ratio and minimize negative environmental impacts. As an information- and computation-intensive technology, the success of precision agriculture depends strongly upon highly efficient and reliable methods for site-specific field information gathering and processing. Remote sensing provides a tool for precision agriculture information gathering and has advantages of low costs, quickness, and high spatial resolution. Great progress has already been made to utilize remote sensing for in-field soil property determination. Recent publications on the subject of remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture were reviewed in this article. Information regarding the soil properties under investigation, sensing techniques, and data analysis techniques were collected to recognize the current state of the art and predict the future trend. Limitations and possibilities using remote sensing for agricultural soil property characterization were also identified.

Technical Abstract: The success of precision agriculture depends strongly upon an efficient and accurate method for in-field soil property determination. This information is critical for farmers to calculate the proper amount of inputs for best crop performance and least environment contamination. Grid sampling, as a tradition way to explore in-field soil variation, has no longer been considered appropriate since it is labor intensive, time consuming and lacks spatial exhaustiveness. Remote sensing provides a new tool for precision agriculture information gathering and has advantages of low costs, quickness, and high spatial resolution. Great progress has already been made to utilize remote sensing for in-field soil property determination. In this paper, recent publications on the subject of remote sensing of soil properties in precision agriculture were reviewed. Information regarding the soil properties under investigation, sensing techniques, and data analysis techniques were collected to recognize the current state of the art and predict the future trend. Limitations and possibilities using remote sensing for agricultural soil property characterization were also identified. The authors expected that future researchers would be benefited from information presented in this article by choosing most appropriate sensing techniques and data analysis methods for their specific research purposes.