What are soil maps and how to upload them?

Soil maps show the diversity of soil properties such as pH, organic matter, nutrients, and chemical elements in a given area. They are created in laboratories based on soil samples taken at fields. In precision farming, soil maps are used to select the best fertilization, seeding, or crop protection strategies.

You can upload soil maps to SKYFLD® and use them to generate application maps, along with the biomass maps and yield maps.

How to upload soil maps?

To upload a soil map, find a field in the application for which it was prepared. You can select it from the list or find it on the map. If you want to upload a map for a field that has not been created in SKYFLD®, first follow the steps from this article.

Once you found the area you want to add a map to, click on a field name and scroll down to access the Maps section. Click on the map icon . Next, click the Upload button. The dialogue window opens where the Soil map is already preselected. You can move straight to uploading files. Browse your device or drag&drop them in a marked space. Make sure you upload a .shp file along with .shx and .dbf files. If you have .prj and .cgf files, upload them as well.

Once your files appear at the bottom of the window click the Upload button. Next, you will see a notification about the mapping properties and you will be asked to set up the map production date.

To map the properties with the data saved in files, click on Select property. Choose them from the list. For each property, an individual Soil map will be created. To proceed, click Create map(s).

SKYFLD® provides the following soil properties:

Uploaded Soil Maps are displayed in the Other tab in Maps Section. Click on the chosen map to see the details and values distribution per zone.

To learn how to use soil maps, read the next article.