Using a Digital Image Camera and Colorimetric Analysis for Simp le Detecting Soil Quality in Nam Dok Mai Mango Orchards

Abstract

Soil color is a parameter effecting on soil quality, the evaluation of the spatial variation in soil color and related soil properties in Nam Dok Mai mango (Barracuda) orchards from 74 soil was aimed to determine the color parameters (R, G, B) using a digital camera, and analyze contents of organic carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Model was built to improve the former methodology by conversion of RGB color units to L*, a*, b* color space. Two main ideas were proposed and tested. 1) Substantial amount of color tones is generated to cover as many points in the color space as possible, and 2) the color space was calibrated separately. The obtained results could be as model and geographic map. Additionally, the R, G, B color units and L*, a*, b* color space transformation approach proposed in this study could be useful for predicting the soil quality correlating with nitrogen, potassium organic carbon and organic matter.