Response analysis of the soil structure to some tillage and irrigation practices: An image analysis based approach

Changes on soil structure due to agronomic practices have been traditionally studied using many different methods. Among these latter, image analysis techniques have been proved specially useful for their capability to directly describe shape and organization of the pores. Usually investigations consider 2D-sections of soil and "object-oriented" image analysis. In the present work some different soils, under different cultivation and irrigation techniques are studied by using a new approach in porosity analysis, based on algorithms of mathematical morphology. In some cases the performed analysis has regarded three-dimensional images of soil which were obtained by using a new technique of mechanical tomography. Results on the examinated study cases, show that the proposed approach can provide great contribution in (ì) quantifying effects on soil structure due to agronomic management and (ìì) seeking for effective soil quality indexes