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Comparing temperature correction models for soil electrical conductivity measurement

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Abstract

There are various factors that affect soil electrical conductivity (EC) measurements, including soil texture, soil water content, cation exchange capacity (CEC) and others. Temperature is an important environmental variable, and different models can be used to correct for its effect on EC measurements and standardize the measurements to 25°C. It is relevant to analyze these models and to determine whether they are consistent with each other. Some models were wrongly cited. We found that the exponential model of Sheets and Hendrickx as corrected by Corwin and Lesch in 2005 performs the best. The ratio model also performs well between 3°C and 47°C.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the support provided by China Scholarship Council for a visiting scholarship at the Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, The University of Sydney. Thanks are also extended to the Australian Research Council, providing funds for a Discovery Project on High Resolution Digital Soil Mapping. The authors also thank the reviewers for their insight and comprehensive comments on the original manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Engineering, Key Laboratory of Key Technology on Agricultural Machine and Equipment, South China Agricultural University, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, 510642, China

    Ruijun Ma

  2. Australian Centre for Precision Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Alex McBratney, Brett Whelan, Budiman Minasny & Michael Short

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  1. Ruijun Ma
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  2. Alex McBratney
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Correspondence to Ruijun Ma.

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Ma, R., McBratney, A., Whelan, B. et al. Comparing temperature correction models for soil electrical conductivity measurement. Precision Agric 12, 55–66 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-009-9156-7

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