Spatial variability of soil physical attributes and its effects on wheat yield

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to study the spatial variability influence of soil physical attributes in wheat yield. The geostatistics techniques used were semivariogram and contour maps produced by interpolation through usual kriging representing the spatial variability of the soil physical attributes: soil water content, soil total porosity, soil compaction degree and soil resistance to penetration.. Experimental data were at a Rhodic Ferralsol from the Agricultural Engineering Experimental Nucleus at UNIOESTE - Cascavel Campus. Soil physical attributes and wheat yield maps presented a variability standard regarding distribution in experimental area, showing low wheat yield where there was high soil compaction degree, low soil total porosity and low soil water content also presenting good wheat yield where low and medium soil resistance to penetration, medium and high soil water content and low soil compaction degree occurred. Among the studied soil physical attributes studied, soil resistance to penetration was the best attribute in correlation with wheat yield. The second best attribute was soil compaction degree. This paper enabled us to understand in a better way the spatial dependence structure of the studied attributes, as well as the concepts and geostatistics applications.