Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
20
Soil EC
a
Mapping Helps
Establish Research Plots
at a New Research and
Extension Center
Hamid J. Farahani, David A. Claypool, R. P. Kelli Belden,
Larry C. Munn, and Robert A. Flynn
ContentS
20.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 281
20.2 Methods............................................................................................................................... 282
20.3 Results ................................................................................................................................. 284
20.4 Concluding Remarks........................................................................................................... 286
References ...................................................................................................................................... 286
20.1 IntRodUCtIon
The establishment of a new agricultural research and extension center is a rare event, full of oppor-
tunities for success or failure. The University of Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station pur-
chased land in 2003 to launch a new research and extension center to replace older facilities at
Torrington and Archer, Wyoming. The Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension Center
(SAREC), which consists of approximately 149 ha of irrigated and 617 ha of dryland farmland, 775
ha of pasture, and 24 ha of farmstead, is located west of the town of Lingle in Goshen County in
southeast Wyoming and along the North Platte River (Figure 20.1). SAREC is a field research and
extension station for investigating various aspects of crop and livestock production including inte-
grated crop-livestock systems (Claypool et al., 2004a).
With the creation of the new research and extension center, the College of Agriculture at the
University of Wyoming was presented with a unique opportunity to develop baseline soils and yield
maps before research plots are established (Belden et al., 2005). Understanding and documenting
the status of the soil resource before initiating research offers a unique opportunity to quantify
changes in soil quality. Knowledge of soil resource variability also aids researchers with the spatial
placement of their plots, particularly if soil variance is to be kept at a minimum.
Two advances in agricultural sensing and mapping technology—on-the-go mapping of yield
and apparent soil electrical conductivity (EC
a
)—provided the Agricultural Experiment Station with
an exciting set of tools with which to plan and manage SAREC. After the land was purchased
and in cooperation with USDA-ARS Water Management Research unit in Fort Collins, Colorado,
the Agriculture Experiment Station allocated resources to obtain important baseline data: digital
imagery, yield, EC
a
, and elevation maps, and grid soil sampling and analysis. As discussed by
many in this topic, geospatial EC
a
mapping provides the simplest and most rapid assessment of soil
281
