Establishing best practices for diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (mid-DRIFTS) of soils is a high priority to enable robust soil testing. Our aims were to determine suitable experimental parameters to optimize analytical and predictive applications of high-throughput mid-DRIFTS in soil analysis. Based on a series of three papers that evaluated A) sample preparation, B) instrument setup for spectra acquisition, and C) data processing (chemometrics), we provide recommendations on how to improve mid-DRIFTS efficiency to measure soil properties. The three articles, first authored by our Post Doc Leonardo Deiss, can be found below.
A) Deiss L., Demyan M.S., Culman S.W. (2020) Grinding and sample replication often improves mid-DRIFTS predictions of soil properties. Soil Science Society of America Journal. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/saj2.20021
B) Deiss L., Margenot A.J., Demyan M.S., Culman S.W. (2020) Optimizing acquisition parameters in diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy of soils. Soil Science Society of America Journal. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/saj2.20028
C) Deiss L., Margenot A.J., Demyan M.S., Culman S.W. (2020) Tuning support vector machines regression models improves prediction accuracy of soil properties in mid-DRIFTS. Geoderma 365, 114227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2020.114227