Development of On-the-go Soil Sensor for Rice Transplanter*

Abstract The objective of this paper was to provide the development of on-the-go soil sensor for rice transplanter, particularly from a perspective of precision agriculture applications. Ultrasonic sensor, electrodes and platinum resistance thermometer were employed for topsoil depth (TD) and apparent electrical conductivity (ECa) measurement. Soil fertility value (SFV) defined as new soil parameter, which consisted of EC a / TD. The results of field test revealed that the developed equipments could measure the TD (R 2 = 0.999), and the SFV had a strong relationship with measured EC (R 2 = 0.937).