Effect of particle size and scanning cup type for near infrared reflection on the soil property measurement

The purpose of this research was to find out suitable soil sample preparation and sample holding tools for NIR reflection radiation for estimating soil components. NIR reflectance was scanned at 2nm intervals from 1,100 to 2,500nm with an InfraAlyzer 500(Bran+Luebbe Co.). Coarse(2.0mm) and fine(0.5mm) soil sample and various sample holding tools were used to obtain mean diffuse reflection of the soil for the calibration and validation of the calibration set in estimating moisture, organic matter and total nitrogen of the soils. Multiple linear regression was used to obtain the best correlation of NIR spectroscopy method. Correlation of NIR spectroscopy method. Correlation of NIR spectra for finely and coarsely sized soil did not show much difference. The standard errors of prediction(SE) using different types of sample holding tools for organic matter, total nitrogen and soil moisture were better than 0.765, 0.041 and 0.63% respectively. From the results it can be concluded that NIR spectroscopy with flow type cell could be used as a fast routine testing method in quantitative determination of organic matter, total nitrogen and soil moisture.