Spectral behaviour of yellow soil of Rajasthan under various levels of organic matter

Abstract

This investigation on spectral behaviour of yellow soil of Rajasthan under various levels of organic matter was conducted in the laboratory of Department of Soil Science and Agriculture Chemistry, VNMKV, Parbhani in 2018. One and half kilogram of yellow soil (S3) was mixed with six levels of vermicompost viz. V0: No vermicompost, V1:100 gm vermicompost, V2: 250 gm vermicompost, V3: 500 gm vermicompost, V4: 1 kg vermicompost and V5: 1.5 kg vermicompost making total 6 treatment combinations to create different levels of organic matter and colour shades. These different combinations were exposed for spectral reflectance studies and observations were taken by SVC GER 1500 Spectro radiometer. The readings (% reflectance) were taken for corresponding wavelengths (nm) of Red and NIR bands. It was noticed that with increase in vermicompost to yellow soil there was decrease in reflectance. It is found that S3T1 and S3T2 i.e. yellow soil 1.5 kg + 100 gm VC and yellow soil 1.5 kg + 250 gm VC showed higher reflectance at all wavelengths than S3T3, S3T4 and S1T5 (i.e. addition of 500 gm, 1 kg and 1.5 kg of vermicompost, respectively). While addition of lower amount of vermicompost i.e. 100 gm, 200 gm and 500 gm yellow soil depicted higher reflectance. Yellow soil showed maximum Red reflectance at 658 to 660 nm band and NIR reflectance at 858 to 860 nm.