Development of Nondestructive Grouping System for Soil Organic Matter Using VIS and NIR Spectral Reflectance

This study was conducted to develop a nondestructive grouping system for soil organic matter using visible (VIS) and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopic method. The artificial light was irradiated on the cut soil surface at 15 to 20 cm depths to reduce the errors of light at open field. The reflectance energy from the cut soil surface was measured to group the soil organic matter using VIS/NIR light sensor with narrow band pass filter. From reflectance spectra of soil samples, the sensitive wavelengths for measuring the soil organic matter were selected and compared to previous research results. The grouping system for soil organic matter consisted of light sensor with band pass filter measuring the reflectance energy of the cut soil surface, global positing system (GPS), analog-to-digital (AD) converter, computer and operating software. The regression models to predict the soil organic matter were developed and evaluated. From field test, the accuracies of the developed light sensor system were 81.3% for five-stage grouping of the soil organic matters and 91.0% for three-stages grouping of the soil organic matters, respectively. It could be possible to support the decision making for variable rate applications with the developed grouping system for soil organic matter in precision agriculture.