Soil nutrient detection is important for precise fertilization. A total of 150 soil samples were picked from Lishui City. In this work, the total nitrogen (TN) content in soil samples was detected in the spectral range of 900–1700 nm using a hyperspectral imaging (HSI) system. Characteristic wavelengths were extracted using uninformative variable elimination (UVE) and the successive projections algorithm (SPA), separately. Partial least squares (PLS) and extreme learning machine (ELM) were used to establish the calibration models with full spectra and characteristic wavelengths, respectively. The results indicated that the prediction effect of the nonlinear ELM model was superior to the linear PLS model. In addition, the models using the characteristic wavelengths could also achieve good results, and the UVE–ELM model performed better, having a correlation coefficient of prediction (rp), root-mean-square error of prediction (RMSEP), and residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 0.9408, 0.0075, and 2.97, respectively. The UVE–ELM model was then used to estimate the TN content in the soil sample and obtain a distribution map. The research results indicate that HSI can be used for the detection and visualization of the distribution of TN content in soil, providing a basis for future large-scale monitoring of soil nutrient distribution and rational fertilization.
Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy is widely used to predict soil organic carbon (SOC) because it is rapid and accurate under proper calibration. However, the prediction accuracy of the calibration model may be greatly reduced if the soil characteristics of some new target areas are different from the existing soil spectral library (SSL), which greatly limits the application potential of the technology. We attempted to solve the problem by building a large-scale SSL or using the spiking method. A total of 983 soil samples were collected from Zhejiang Province, and three SSLs were built according to geographic scope, representing the provincial, municipal, and district scales. The partial least squares (PLS) algorithm was applied to establish the calibration models based on the three SSLs, and the models were used to predict the SOC of two target areas in Zhejiang Province. The results show that the prediction accuracy of each model was relatively poor regardless of the scale of the SSL (residual predictive deviation (RPD) < 2.5). Then, the Kennard-Stone (KS) algorithm was applied to select 5 or 10 spiking samples from each target area. According to different SSLs and numbers of spiking samples, different spiked models were established by the PLS. The results show that the predictive ability of each model was improved by the spiking method, and the improvement effect was inversely proportional to the scale of the SSL. The spiked models built by combining the district scale SSL and a few spiking samples achieved good prediction of the SOC of two target areas (RPD = 2.72 and 3.13). Therefore, it is possible to accurately measure the SOC of new target areas by building a small-scale SSL with a few spiking samples.
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