Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data

Abstract In the pursuit of enhancing yield efficiency, mitigating environmental impact, and reducing costs of fertilizers and fuel, precision farming emerges as a pivotal strategy. The application of nutrients must be tailored according to spatial and temporal variations. This requires a comprehensi...

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Main Authors: Larissa Torney, Cornelia Weltzien, Martin Herold, Sebastian Vogel, Sebastian Voß
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Springer 2025-07-01
Series:Discover Agriculture
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-025-00283-8
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author Larissa Torney
Cornelia Weltzien
Martin Herold
Sebastian Vogel
Sebastian Voß
author_facet Larissa Torney
Cornelia Weltzien
Martin Herold
Sebastian Vogel
Sebastian Voß
author_sort Larissa Torney
collection DOAJ
description Abstract In the pursuit of enhancing yield efficiency, mitigating environmental impact, and reducing costs of fertilizers and fuel, precision farming emerges as a pivotal strategy. The application of nutrients must be tailored according to spatial and temporal variations. This requires a comprehensive understanding of the nutrient composition of organic fertilizers, the nutrient supply of plants, and the soil’s capacity. To optimize fertilizer application in the field, it is recommendable to subdivide the field into management zones, thereby identifying distinct zones characterized by uniform growing conditions. To establish management zones, we combined satellite-based phenological-dependent timeseries of vegetation, with proximal soil sensor data from a multi-sensor platform. The zones were generated through a multi-step clustering algorithm, based on hierarchical clustering, which results were combined by a consensus clustering algorithm. Four different scenarios of input datasets were tested. The first scenario incorporates all scenes during the timeseries, followed by the one with selected scenes during specific phenology stages. Another scenario was based solely on soil information. The fourth scenario involves phenologically distributed vegetation and soil information. For the validation we calculated the variance for the input datasets per cluster, lying under one scenario. Our hypothesis that the clustering based on soil and phenology separated vegetation data would improve the management zones was refuted. The vegetation cluster, which was based on the entire Sentinel-2 timeseries, exhibited optimal performance, for one field in Groß Kreutz, Germany. The management zones are interpreted as recommendations for farmers to adapt the management practices within the framework of possibilities.
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institution Kabale University
issn 2731-9598
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publishDate 2025-07-01
publisher Springer
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series Discover Agriculture
spelling doaj-art-3f21abfbecf24be7998f48f195fded8a2025-08-20T03:43:21ZengSpringerDiscover Agriculture2731-95982025-07-013112910.1007/s44279-025-00283-8Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing dataLarissa Torney0Cornelia Weltzien1Martin Herold2Sebastian Vogel3Sebastian Voß4Department of Agromechatronics, Technische Universitat BerlinDepartment of Agromechatronics, Technische Universitat BerlinGFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Section 1.4 Remote Sensing and GeoinformaticsDepartment of Agromechatronics, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB)Department of Agromechatronics, Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB)Abstract In the pursuit of enhancing yield efficiency, mitigating environmental impact, and reducing costs of fertilizers and fuel, precision farming emerges as a pivotal strategy. The application of nutrients must be tailored according to spatial and temporal variations. This requires a comprehensive understanding of the nutrient composition of organic fertilizers, the nutrient supply of plants, and the soil’s capacity. To optimize fertilizer application in the field, it is recommendable to subdivide the field into management zones, thereby identifying distinct zones characterized by uniform growing conditions. To establish management zones, we combined satellite-based phenological-dependent timeseries of vegetation, with proximal soil sensor data from a multi-sensor platform. The zones were generated through a multi-step clustering algorithm, based on hierarchical clustering, which results were combined by a consensus clustering algorithm. Four different scenarios of input datasets were tested. The first scenario incorporates all scenes during the timeseries, followed by the one with selected scenes during specific phenology stages. Another scenario was based solely on soil information. The fourth scenario involves phenologically distributed vegetation and soil information. For the validation we calculated the variance for the input datasets per cluster, lying under one scenario. Our hypothesis that the clustering based on soil and phenology separated vegetation data would improve the management zones was refuted. The vegetation cluster, which was based on the entire Sentinel-2 timeseries, exhibited optimal performance, for one field in Groß Kreutz, Germany. The management zones are interpreted as recommendations for farmers to adapt the management practices within the framework of possibilities.https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-025-00283-8Consensus clusteringFertilizer precisionGeophilusHierarchical clusteringManagement zonesPrecision farming
spellingShingle Larissa Torney
Cornelia Weltzien
Martin Herold
Sebastian Vogel
Sebastian Voß
Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
Discover Agriculture
Consensus clustering
Fertilizer precision
Geophilus
Hierarchical clustering
Management zones
Precision farming
title Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
title_full Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
title_fullStr Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
title_full_unstemmed Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
title_short Improving agricultural management zoning involving Sentinel-2 timeseries, crop’s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
title_sort improving agricultural management zoning involving sentinel 2 timeseries crop s phenology stages and proximal soil sensing data
topic Consensus clustering
Fertilizer precision
Geophilus
Hierarchical clustering
Management zones
Precision farming
url https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-025-00283-8
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