Soil productivity analysis based on a fuzzy logic system.

BACKGROUND Maintaining soil productivity is essential if agriculture production systems are to be sustainable. However, there is a paucity of tools for measurement for the purpose of understanding changes in soil productivity. Fuzzy logic-based analysis offers this possibility. It is a new method on the evaluation of soil productivity in Turkey and even in the world. RESULTS Values for pH, salinity, carbonate and organic matter were entered into the system as input variables so as to obtain soil productivity as the output. After the membership functions related to input and output were determined, rules were created. Then, the fuzzy logic system was applied separately to pH, salinity, lime and organic matter values of different soil types present in the Kocaeli region with the aim of obtaining corresponding fuzzy values. Thus, soil productivity profiles of the region were deciphered. CONCLUSION Organic matter levels in the study field remained below 30 g kg(-1) and varied between 22 and 28 g kg(-1). Productivity values were obtained as a percentage and varied between 16.9% and 18.1%. The lime content of the study soils varied in the range of 33-88 g kg(-1). Average totals for salt values of the field changed between 0.58 and 0.77 g kg(-1).