The Soil Information System (SIS) – Applications in Applied Agronomy.

The Soil Information System (SIS) has been used to create true 3-D soil information products on thousands of sites across 6 continents since 2003. The SIS involves the deployment of advanced and unique soil sensing technology in conjunction with software that dynamically and adaptively guides the data collection process. The data from the multiple sensors is compiled and analyzed in comparison to a database of global soil property information resulting in the world’s most statistically accurate and spatially relevant soil information products.

Many of the information products are unique to SIS such as ‘Depth to Root Restriction’, ‘Root Limiting Plant Available Water’, and the ‘Soil Health Signature’ as well as many others. In addition, critical attributes essential to managing irrigation and nutrients such as soil horizon depth and thickness are also unique to SIS. The SIS can delineate a continuous soil profile resulting in the optimization of the placement and interpretation of soil moisture probes and fertility testing and their subsequent extrapolation to the entire field for decision support. The information obtained from SIS is objective, repeatable, and transferable meaning it is ideal for baseline assessments and inventory.

The real value in the SIS is the analytics it enables. Because the SIS creates many dozen spatially independent continuous vertical layers of soil information and attributes it enhances the power of analysis and adds clarity to interpretation when comparing yield and/or remote sensing data. The resulting AgForensics analysis is an ideal tool for dynamic, proactive scouting and precision management activities. The SIS is like the MRI for soil and the agronomists and soil scientists are the doctors. Examples of this type of analysis will be presented to the audience.