The Effect and Mitigation of Vineyard Trellising on EM38 Soil Conductivity Measurements

Abstract

The EM38 has a widely accepted role in precision agriculture for the efficient mapping of sub-surface apparent electrical conductivity at data densities of the order of 10 m. The resultant high-resolution maps of apparent conductivity enable agriculturists to infer soil properties such as soil moisture and salinity which aid localized crop management decisions. However, when applied to viticulture, previously published research has confirmed that the use of electromagnetic induction instruments, such as the EM38, has been flawed by the interference from the conducting wire and steel-post loops of the grapevine trellising. This has raised questions about the reliability of interpretations made from potentially flawed maps of apparent conductivity in vineyards. In this research, a combination of component and whole trellis assembly trials confirmed that this interference was separable into two significant components: the steel trellis loops and the trellis-earth system. Furthermore, while these two effects theoretically interact, the contributions from each were found to be conceptually separable in terms of both the EM38 response and possible mitigation or data correction strategies.