Determination of the relationship between apparent soil electrical conductivity with pomological properties and yield in different apple varieties

Precision horticulture and spatial analysis applied to orchards are a growing and evolving part of precision agriculture technology. The aim of this study was to produce yield and pomological properties maps in order to determine the relationship between these parameters and apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa) characteristics in different apple varieties, as well as analyze spatial variation in an apple orchard. This study was carried out at an apple orchard in the Faculty of Agriculture of Ankara University's Haymana Research Station. In this work, apparent soil electrical conductivity values were acquired by using EM38 sensor. These values were used to produce maps and compared with yield and pomological characteristic maps using classical statistics and spatial analyst methods. As a result, the highest value of non-linear regression between ECa and yield was determined in the 'Red Chief' (R-2 = 0.94) while the highest calculated value for yield in cross-sectional area were found to be in 'jonagold' with R-2 = 0.44. The other indexes such as coefficient of variation and Moran's I index were used to determine variability and autocorrelation in each value.