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Understanding the spatial variability of soil texture within field soils is important due to its influence on a large number of soil and plant related processes and for site-specific application of inputs that are crucial to crop production. It remains a problem to obtain a reliable clay content map based on a limited number of sampling locations. The objective of this study was to identify spatial variability of soil clay content and the behavior of the estimation result for different spatial resolutions of measured clay content (0–20 cm depth) in combination with a coregionalization approach using apparent electrical conductivity (ECa). In a silty loam soil, soil clay content was measured at 96 points in a 50-m by 50-m grid within an agricultural field. ECa was measured using a contact sensor Veris 3150. Data were analyzed with ordinary kriging and cokriging while using ECa at a shallow depth. We analyzed different sampling scenarios based on clay subsamples of 48, 24, and 12 data points distributed over the 27-ha field. In all scenarios investigated here, the RMSE stayed in the range of 3 to 4% by using different validations, with cokriging performing constantly better than ordinary kriging. Clay content maps estimated with cokriging maintained a satisfactory precision when the sampling density was reduced to one sample per two hectares, a result that leads to the conclusion that electrical conductivity in combination with spatial coregionalization demonstrated to be a promising tool to estimate the spatial variation of clay content even at a low clay sampling density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extractable soil-K concentration, used for fertilizer-K recommendations, may be affected by soil drying. Although air or oven drying are the most common soil processing methods, K from field-moist soil has been documented to be a better predictor of soil-K availabilities and fertilizer-K needs for soybean [Glycine max. (L.) Merr.] grown on fertile silt loam to clayey soils. We evaluated the effect of four soil processing methods (field-moist [FM], air-dry [AD], air-dry followed by oven-dry [ADOD], and oven-dry [OD]) in predicting extractable soil-K availability for soybean production on less fertile Mid-Atlantic sandy-textured soils. Twelve soybean field trials were conducted in 2014 on Coastal plain and piedmont soils in Virginia and North Carolina. Soil K was extracted by Mehlich-1 with each soil processing method and correlated with soybean relative yield. Soil-K concentrations from each method were statistically similar and strongly correlated (r² = 0.94-0.98) with each other having intercept and slope coefficients that were not different from zero and one, respectively. Extractable soil-K concentrations from each method were also strongly correlated with soybean relative yield and explained 93 to 95% of the relative yield variation for FM soil, 95 to 96% for AD soil, 83 to 86% for ADOD soil, and 94 to 95% for OD soil. Results suggest that soil-K concentrations from FM, AD, and OD samples are similar in predicting K availability for soybean. Soil drying should not be an issue of concern in extracting soil K and recommending fertilizer-K rate for soybean production on Mid-Atlantic coarse-textured Coastal Plain and Piedmont soils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]