Delineation of management zones using an active canopy sensor for a tobacco field

• We identify the key yield-limiting factors of soil properties and stages of NDVI measured respectively for tobacco.
• We characterize the spatial variability of soil properties and vegetation index.
• We delineate management zones using soil properties and NDVI measurements respectively by use of fuzzy clustering algorithm.
• It is feasible to use an active canopy sensor to delineate MZs instead of using soil properties.

Recent precision agriculture research has focused on the utilization of management zones (MZs) as a method for variable-rate fertilizer applications. This study tries to make use of an active canopy sensor to define MZs in contrast with the ones using soil properties. To achieve this objective, a 20-m grid-sampling scheme was imposed on the field with 101 points, and we collected soil samples from the top 20 cm at each point before tobacco planting in April 2013. The normalized difference vegetative index (NDVI) data at five growth stages of the tobacco growth cycle were measured by using a GreenSeeker handheld crop sensor at the location of each sample point. Yield mapping was carried out at harvest. Through stepwise multiple analysis, we identified the key yield-limiting factors of soil properties and stages of NDVI measured respectively. For soil property data, OM, AP and Fe were used for yield-based MZs while for canopy parameters, NDVI during knee-high and flowering were utilized. Fuzzy c-means clustering algorithm was performed in order to determine the optimal number of the clusters. Results showed that the optimal number of MZs with regard to the two methods were both five and variance analysis indicated the heterogeneity of soil properties and yield among them. Consequently, it is feasible to use an active canopy sensor to delineate management zones for tobacco-planting fields.