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The components of variation associated with sampling soil for the measurement of major and trace nutrients in grazed fields in S.E. Scotland
Author(s) -
Cameron D.,
Paterson J.E.,
Hunter E.A.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
soil use and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.709
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1475-2743
pISSN - 0266-0032
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-2743.1994.tb00448.x
Subject(s) - spatial variability , sampling (signal processing) , variation (astronomy) , environmental science , coefficient of variation , nutrient , soil science , field (mathematics) , soil test , statistics , hydrology (agriculture) , zoology , soil water , mathematics , ecology , geology , biology , physics , geotechnical engineering , filter (signal processing) , computer science , astrophysics , pure mathematics , computer vision
. The laboratory, spatial and temporal components of variation associated with sampling soil for the measurement of pH, organic matter and extractable P, K, Mg, S, Cu, and Co were studied over two years using soil samples from 15 farms in S.E. Scotland. On each farm a selected field was divided into 4–8 sectors, and sampled three times each year, in June, August and October, by bulking 25 cores taken in a ‘W’ pattern. Analysis of variance showed that inter‐field variation was greater than that between sampling dates for most of the properties measured. Restricted Maximum Likelihood Estimation showed that for all elements except K and S the variation between fields was greater than that within a field. Temporal variation was usually smaller than spatial, but K and Co showed similarly small temporal and spatial variations. Variation associated with laboratory procedures was much less than either spatial or temporal variation except for S, most of the total observed variation of which resulted from laboratory error. It is suggested that the most cost effective field sampling technique is to split a field into sectors, sample each individually and analyse a bulked sample made up from the sectors.