SoftwareX publication

Citation

Correndo, A. A., Pearce, A., Bolster, C. H., Spargo, J. T., Osmond, D., & Ciampitti, I. A. (2023). The soiltestcorr R package: An accessible framework for reproducible correlation analysis of crop yield and soil test data. SoftwareX, 21, 101275.

Highlights

• soiltestcorr stemmed from the Fertilizer Recommendation Support Tool (FRST) project.
  
• soiltestcorr is an accessible R package assembling key soil test correlation models.
  
• soiltestcorr facilitates the fitting of multiple models without the need of advanced programming skills.
  
• soiltestcorr aligns with the grammar, pipeline, and data visualization practices of the popular tidyverse.
  
• A web application based on shiny is also offered for users with no programming skills.
  

Abstract

The soiltestcorr R package is an open-source software designed to enable accessible and reproducible computation of correlation analyses between crop yield response to fertilization and soil test values. The package compiles a series of functions for analyzing soil test correlation data: (i) Cate & Nelson data partitioning procedure (graphical and statistical versions), (ii) nonlinear regression analysis (linear-plateau, quadratic-plateau, and Mitscherlich-type exponential models), and (iii) the modified arcsine-log calibration curve. The soiltestcorr enables users to correlate crop response to soil nutrient availability and estimate a critical soil test value and visualize results with ggplot without requiring advanced R programming skills. Finally, a web application that facilitates the use of the package is also offered for users with no background in R programming.

Full publication is open-access here https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101275