Elemental profile of agricultural soil by the EDXRF technique and use of the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method to interpret the complex data

The elemental profile of agricultural soil is important to study the various mechanisms of interaction among elements and their roles in plants growth. The chosen study site was the long term fertilization experiment (LTFE) field of the G.B. Pant University. The concentrations of 16 elements, namely Mg, Al, Si, Ca, K, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr and Pb have been determined in the soil samples by the EDXRF technique. The PCA method is used to interpret the elemental concentrations data.