Studying soil properties variability to delineate management zones for precision agriculture in a durum wheat field

Delineating a field into a few management zones (MZ) is a practical management approach for precision agriculture. In this study, some soil properties and a multivariate geostatistical approach were used to delineate management zones. The present study was conducted on a 120,000 m2 durum wheat field in Southern Italy, where soil properties were determined for two growing seasons (2005-06 and 2006-07) at 100 locations. The multivariate spatial and temporal data were analysed by Factor Kriging Analysis (FKA). All simple and cross model variograms were calculated by fitting a linear model of coregionalization including the nugget effect and two spatial structures at shorter (59 m) and longer range (160 m). The application of factor kriging allowed us to identify one regionalized factor at longer scale and to partition the field into contiguous zones to be submitted to precision agriculture. The method showed a great flexibility to combine data from several sources in the delineation of management zones.