Assessment of soil fertility index for potato production using integrated Fuzzy and AHP approaches, Northeast of Iran

Year 2018, Volume: 7 Issue: 3, 203 - 212, 01.07.2018

Ali Bagherzadeh Amin Gholizadeh Ali Keshavarzi

https://doi.org/10.18393/ejss.399775

Cited By: 5

Abstract

Considering the important role of soil fertility and
nutrient management in the modern agriculture seems to be a key step in appropriate site-specific fertilizers management for crop
production.  The present study was conducted to prepare a soil fertility zonation map
based on soil nutrient elements including total nitrogen, available potassium
and phosphorus, magnesium, manganese and iron and soil chemical parameters
comprising cation exchange capacity, organic carbon, salinity and pH by
integrated Fuzzy and AHP approaches for potato production in Rokh plain,
northeast of Iran. In this regard the most important soil chemical parameters
and nutrient elements in 0-30 cm depth of the soil was analyzed and mapped.  The S-shaped fuzzy membership function was subsequently defined for each factor to fuzzify soil
fertility parameters. The soil fertility map was prepared by weighing factor
layers by the AHP approach and summation of factor layers by IDW interpolation
function in GIS. The values of the soil fertility index in the scale of 0 to 1
ranged from 0.104 to 0.574, classified the study area in very low (922.90 km²),
low (566.10 km²) and moderate fertility (14.86 km²)
classes which comprises 61.37%, 37.64% and 0.99% of the surface area,
respectively. A regression between soil fertility values and potato yield in
the study area revealed a high correlation (R² = 0.91) between the
observed results which validate the zonation of the fertility classes in the
region.

Keywords

Potato, fuzzy, AHP, fertility index, Rokh plain

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