Using Nix color sensor and Munsell soil color variables to classify contrasting soil types and predict soil organic carbon in Eastern India

Optimal soil management depends on rapid and frequent monitoring of key soil properties, which are conventionally measured in the laboratory using laborious wet-chemistry protocols. The Nix color sensor has recently exhibited promise for predicting several soil properties using soil color. This study evaluated the relationship between the Munsell Soil Color Chart (MSCC) color values of dry and ground surface soil samples to those re-ported by the Nix color sensor with (Nix(STD)) and without MSCC standardization (Nix(NON-STD)) to classify 371 samples collected from three contrasting soil types, collected from three agroclimatic zones (coastal saline zone, red and laterite zone, and Gangetic alluvial zone) and to predict soil organic carbon (OC) using different multivariate data mining algorithms. Comparing the CIEL*a*b* color values reported by the MSCC and the Nix(STD), an acceptable mean color difference (delta E*(ab)) value of 5.20 was obtained, indicating the potential accuracy of the Nix sensor. Principal component analysis efficiently clustered the soil types using the RGB variables extracted from the MSCC color chips in tandem with the Nix(STD)/Nix(NON-STD) data. Both classification tree and linear support vector machine algorithms perfectly classified all three contrasting soil types using Nix(NON-STD) data alone. Besides, the combination of the MSCC and the Nix(NON-STD) datasets produced the best OC prediction (R2 = 0.66) via random forest (RF) algorithm and indicated the potential of Nix in digital soil morphometrics. In most of the RF models, redness (a*), yellowness (b*), and yellow (Y) variables appeared influential, presumably because of their negative correlation with OC in red and laterite soils. More research is warranted to measure the impacts of variable soil moisture and other confounding soil morphological features on the soil classification and OC prediction performance to extend the approach for classifying soil types and predicting OC in-situ.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the potential of using the Nix color sensor to predict soil properties, and found an acceptable relationship between the Nix sensor and the Munsell Soil Color Chart. Through multivariate data mining algorithms, different soil types were successfully classified, and the combination of the MSCC and Nix datasets produced the best prediction of soil organic carbon.