Soil Data

Overview

Soil chemical analysis is one of the most important data layers in crop farming. Typically, the soil information comes from agrochemical laboratories analyzing field soil samples collected based on a grid or zonal approach. The number of soil characteristics in a concrete file can vary from 5-10 macronutrients such as Nitrogen(N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K), cation exchange capacity (CEC), soil organic matter (OM) content to 40-50 with all micronutrient properties.

You can upload soil sampling files into GeoPard Agriculture and get an easily accessible heatmap visualization of each attribute in the soil sampling file. In addition, you can delineate management zones based on any attribute, compare them with other layers like historical crop productivity and build variable rate fertilizer prescription files.

Upload Soil Data

To upload soil data files choose the Import Data menu and the Upload Files item. Then select Soil Data.

Keep in mind that there are some restrictions:

• Only WGS84 (EPSG:4326) shape files are supported with points or polygons-based data.

• The attributes must be a Numeric type (Integer or Real, not String).

• 100MB is the maximum file size.

• Try to eliminate the usage of special symbols like %+@ in the attribute titles.

• The max amount of attributes is 20.

• Each archive is treated as a single dataset (*.shp and *.dbf files are mandatory).

Upload Soil Data as Shapefile

1. You can either drag and drop single or multiple Soil Datasets to the panel or click the Browse button and select a dataset from your computer.

2. Click the Upload button. Then GeoPard will verify that the file meets the requirements and save the data.

Wait for the confirmation dialog to see that the dataset was uploaded successfully:

Upload Confirmation

The Soil Dataset will be available in the tree in the Soil Data section for further interactions including ZonesMaps creation.

Uploaded Soil Sampling Dataset

Friendly Attributes and Units

GeoPard supports friendly names and units for Soil Dataset attributes. To enable this feature, the uploaded archive must include an additional JSON file containing metadata, named <shapefile_name>-Metadata.json. This file provides details on how to interpret the columns in the shapefile.

Archive Structure: Shapefile and Metadata JSON

Example of JSON File

{
  "Version": "1.0",
  "FarmName": "Farm Name",
  "FieldName": "Field Name",
  "Operation": "SoilSampling",
  "CropSeason": 2022,
  "FieldOperationDate": "2022-08-15T12:58:32.76Z",
  "DataAttributes": [
    {
      "Name": "Id",
      "Description": "Sample Number"
    },
    {
      "Name": "N",
      "Unit": "mg1kg-1",
      "Description": "Mineral Nitrogen"
    },
    {
      "Name": "K2O",
      "Unit": "mg1kg-1",
      "Description": "Exchangeable Potassium"
    },
    {
      "Name": "P2O5",
      "Unit": "mg1kg-1",
      "Description": "Mobile Phosphorus"
    },
    {
      "Name": "pH",
      "Description": "Soil Acidity"
    }
  ]
}

Metadata JSON structure explanation:

• DataAttributes contains metadata about each shapefile column.

  • Nameis a shapefile column name.

  • Description is the friendly name of the attribute.

  • Unit is the unit of measurement for the attribute (see the table of supported units below).

• FieldOperationDate is the date of the soil dataset collection.

• CropSeason is the year of the crop season.

• Operation is the name of the operation, such as SoilSampling or SoilScanning.

Supported Units

Unit	Unit Description
prcnt	Percentage
prcnt-1	Per Percentage
ppm	Parts per million
points	Points
in	Inches
ft	Feet
mm	Millimeters
cm	Centimeters
m	Meters
yd	Yards
mi	Miles
km	Kilometers
m2	Square meters
ac	Acres
ha	Hectares
ft2	Square feet
ac-1	Per Acre
ha-1	Per Hectare
kg	Kilograms
lb	Pounds
ton	Tons
t	Metric Tons
cwt	Hundredweight
dg	Decigrams
g	Grams
ozm	Ounces mass
kg-1	Per Kilogram
lb-1	Per Pound
ton-1	Per Ton
t-1	Per Metric Ton
cwt-1	Per Hundredweight
dg-1	Per Decigram
g-1	Per Gram
ozm-1	Per Ounce mass
gal	Gallons
igal	Imperial Gallons
thsndgal	Thousand Gallons
floz	Fluid Ounces
pt	Pints
qt	Quarts
l	Liters
kl	Kiloliters
hl	Hectoliters
ml	Milliliters
ul	Microliters
yd3	Cubic yards
m3	Cubic meters
gal-1	Per Gallon
igal-1	Per Imperial Gallon
thsndgal-1	Per Thousand Gallons
floz-1	Per Fluid Ounce
pt-1	Per Pint
qt-1	Per Quart
l-1	Per Liter
kl-1	Per Kiloliter
hl-1	Per Hectoliter
ml-1	Per Milliliter
ul-1	Per Microliter
sec	Seconds
ms	Milliseconds
min	Minutes
hr	Hours
day	Days
hr-1	Per Hour
arcdeg	Degrees of arc (Heading)
bu	Bushels
bag	Bags (seed load quantity)
sack	Sacks (seed load quantity)
container	Containers
container-1	Per Container
bu-1	Per Bushel
bag-1	Per Bag
sack-1	Per Sack
hz	Hertz
ratio	Ratio
K	Kelvin (Temperature)
F	Fahrenheit (Temperature)
C	Celsius (Temperature)

Soil Dataset Example

Below are GeoPard screenshots demonstrating how the previously shared Metadata.json file for the shapefile with soil dataset is applied.

Soil Dataset with Friendly Attributes Names and Units

Soil Dataset with Friendly Attributes Names and Units

Additional References

See Chapter Zones Maps to find more details on how to create a ZonesMap using Soil Data.

GeoPard also assists with the proper planning of zonal soil sampling. You can plan your Soil Sampling Points and route based on GeoPard Multi-Year Zones that reflect historical crop development patterns.