Larisa Golovko1

Anatoly Pozdnyakov2
Landviser, LLC

1RiceTec, Inc - Houston, TX USA

2 Moscow State University, College of Soil Science – Moscow,

RUSSIA
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 “just dirt”
 “all soils are the same”
 “substrate for plants”
 “I just add water and fertilizer, use prime seeds – my
yields will be high”

Those opinions are very shallow!

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3
  Parent material (geology)
 Climate (temperature
and precipitation)
 Topography
 Vegetation
 Time

If we can map and understand soils, we can understand

the basics of any agro-ecosystem!
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 Permanent ly
frozen Prime land
6% 11%

Too shallow
22%

Too dry
28%

Chemic ally
Too humid
imbalanc ed
10%
23%

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6
 Water quality?
 Soil quality?
 Soil horizons?
 Groundwater depth?

EC/ER is a good “RS” indicator of soil and water

quality, especially salinity levels and GW depth!

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8
 Fits in shirt pocket
 Runs all season from standard
9V battery
 Measures EC/ER in soil, water,
food samples as well as in the
field soils from 2 cm to ~10 m
depth

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 No calibration – EC output
calibrated once for each probe size.
 No GPS integration – no wait for
satellite fix
 Push one button – get EC value in
4 seconds!
 Stores 1000 EC values – can be
merged with concurrently taken
GPS data to produce quick maps.

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 Probes can be made to any
size/configuration from
materials available in any
local hardware store:

Nails/screws
Isolated wires
banana- plugs
PVC pipes,
plastic or wood
 Chemical properties: salt
content, CEC, humus
content, etc.
Intrusions of high
resistivity: stones and oil

 Physical properties: bulk

density, water content,
temperature, texture
Water movement; soil
freezing-melting, soil
compaction or mixing
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 Spatial variability
 Temporal variability

 Many samples are

needed to
characterize a
single field.
 management practices  rainfalls
 water table depths  salinity levels of
 soil properties groundwater
 evapotranspiration rates  hydrogeological conditions
 140
120
ER, Ohm m

100
80
60 Water
table
40
20
0
1 10 100 1000 10000
AB/2 cm
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20
 Good soil EC in top 30 cm < 1.5 dS/m measured in
flooded or “mud” conditions
 EC of irrigation water <1 dS/m – no yield reduction
 EC of irrigation water 1-3 dS/m – yield reduction up to
50%
 On marginally salty soils/water:
 delay permanent flood - use several flushing with fresh
water instead, reduce N fertilizer, apply some gypsum on
sodic soil pre-season, consider switching to other crops or
rice hybrids
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 % of healthy plants

25
35
45
55
65
75
85
95
Co
cod
rie
Tre
nas
se
Jup
iter
Cyp
res
s
CL
XL
730

XP
723
RU
050
2 137
RU
050
1 102
RU
040
2 097
Ch
eni
ere
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