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Abstract
Soil sampling is an important component of site-specific nutrient management in precision agriculture. To investigate how some of the commonly used precision soil sampling strategies influence the depiction of spatial nutrient variability and site-specific nutrient application requirements within agricultural fields, studies were conducted across multiple sites in 2022 and 2023. In the first study, soil sampling was conducted using grid sizes of 0.4, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 ha in each field whereas the second study utilized management zones delineated using different spatial data layers for precision soil sampling. The nutrient application accuracy decreased with the increase in grid size; however, the total application costs were comparable among the grid sizes. For soil sampling based on management zones, soil sampling results were similar to the 0.4-ha grid sampling for some nutrients but were inconsistent across the nutrients (Lime, P, and K) and the fields used in this study.