ABSTRACT Quantification of soil properties is essential for better understanding of the environment and better soil management. The conventional techniques of laboratory analysis are sometimes costly and detrimental to the environment. Thus, development of new techniques for soil analysis that do not generate residues, such as spectroscopy, is increasingly necessary as a viable way to estimate a wide range of soil properties. The objective of this study was to predict the levels of organic carbon (OC), clay, and extractable phosphorus […]

There is a need to evaluate the importance of soil relief together with soil spectral attributes as the basis on soil mapping. The aim of this study was to test a method for detecting soil boundaries through the interaction of spectral data and relief features. Fourteen toposequences were used, representing an area of 13,000 ha near the municipalities of São Carlos and Araraquara, SP, Brazil. The samples were described by the conventional method of chemical and particle size analysis, such […]

Several advances have been made in the field of diffuse spectroradiometry in the last decades. In agriculture, the search for quantification methods of physical and chemical properties of the production environment, based on soil reflectance, has been constantly researched. The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of estimating the silt, sand, clay, sum of bases, total iron and organic matter content in soil samples based on the reflected energy. The samples were collected in a 2500 ha […]

Part of agricultural production index variability is associated with soil and landscape characteristics. Management practices such as fertilizer application should therefore take the soil spatial variability into account. Remote sensing is a tool that can provide faster information for soil management because it relates electromagnetic radiation with soil attributes. Thus, this study aimed at evaluating the spectral response, at two data acquisition levels (terrestrial and orbital), of different soil classes across toposequences in the region of São Carlos and Ibaté, […]

The aim of this study was to evaluate the behavior of the soil line for different soil classes by using reflectance data with a spectroradiometer in the laboratory. Representative samples of the surface and subsurface horizons of 18 soil classes collected in a pilot area in Rafard county, southwest São Paulo state, were dried, sieved and accomodated for spectral reading. Data were computed in order to simulate TM-Landsat 3 and 4 bands and to draw the graphs. The findings showed […]

The objective of this work was to study the spectral reflectance of a Brown Latosol (Haplohumox) and “Terra Bruna Estruturada” (Tropohumult) developed from volcanic acid rocks which occur in the center-south region of Paraná, Brazil. These soil samples were collected at depths of 0-20 and 40-60 cm. The characterization, discrimination and estimation of the soil attributes were studied by their reflected energy determined at the wavelength interval of 400 to 2.500 nm using an IRIS laboratory spectroradiometer. It was possible […]