Application of an original soil tillage resistance sensor in spatial prediction of selected soil properties

The tillage management applied in 2011 resulted in the differences of some soil parameters. Significant differences between the field plots arose with respect to cone index, moisture content and soil tillage resistance. However, no differences arose regarding the texture (sand, silt + clay content) and bulk density. The correlation analysis showed a high positive correlation between soil resistance and cone index (R = 0.82) and a negative correlation between soil resistance and moisture content (R = −0.41). Fitting of variograms in the modeling of spatial correlation gave the highest prediction error for cone index (13.9%), then for tillage resistance (9.32%), sand content (3.95%), moisture content (3.34%), bulk density (2.4%), and finally clay + silt content (2.2%). The generated maps showed that the soil compaction, moisture and tillage resistance had certain orientations with respect to the field plots.