Spatial fuzzy c-means for delineation of potential management zones based on soil physico-chemical properties and cowpea yield

Abstract Aims Management zone delineation is one of the principles of precision agriculture. The spatial variability of the different environmental factors (soil and plants) is evident in several studies. The associations between soil physico-chemical properties and cowpea yield have been assessed, but scholars have usually reported a large unexplained variance of ranges between kriged maps. This suggests that a deeper exploration into the soil properties of these spatial interactions will help develop our understanding on how to reduce the number of soil property maps to delineate management zones and simplify interpretation. Methods This research proposes to investigate whether factorial kriging analysis can be used as an auxiliary variable in cokriging to estimate soil properties and cowpea, and what is the potential of spatial Fuzzy C-Means associated with factorial kriging analysis to delineate management zones. Results By using factor maps and spatial clustering, two management zones were classified. The kriged maps of soil properties were not efficient to delineate management zones. Conclusions Appropriately the results indicate that the proposed method is a practical tool to delineate management zones and it is more efficient than multiple soil properties maps.