TY - JOUR A1 - Pätzold, Stefan A1 - Ostermann, Markus A1 - Heggemann, Tobias A1 - Wehrle, Ralf T1 - Impact of potassium fertilisation on mobile proximal gamma-ray spectrometry: case study on a long-term field trial JF - Precision Agriculture N2 - Mobile proximal gamma-ray spectrometry (GS) is an emerging approach to estimate soil texture directly in the field. It relies on gamma radiation emitted during the natural decay of potassium-40 (K-40) and other isotopes. The K-40 counts are correlated with total K content, mineralogical soil composition and therefore with soil texture. Yet, it is not clear if K fertilisation impacts the ratio of K-40 to total K which would necessitate to take the fertilisation history into account for soil sensing applications. To elucidate this question, a well-documented long-term experiment was selected. The soils of the Rengen grassland experiment (55 plots) were investigated for total K (XRF-K) and for K-40 via mobile proximal GS. No significant differences in XRF-K and K-40 were found between the treatments with and without K fertilisation, although formely published results point to negative and positive K balances, respectively. Fertiliser analysis revealed a ratio of K-40 to total K that was almost identical to the natural abundance of 0.0117%. It was concluded that it is not necessary to take K fertilisation history into account when predicting soil texture from mobile proximal GS on agricultural land for, e.g., precision farming purposes. KW - Soil heterogeneity KW - Potash KW - Isotope ratio KW - Proximal soil sensing KW - XRF PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-584115 DO - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11119-023-10071-3 SN - 1573-1618 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Springer Nature CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-58411 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -