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Presentation
CHARACTERIZING THE STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANIC CARBON AND EXTRACTABLE PHOSPHORUS AT A REGIONAL SCALE
Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture
  • John J. Brejda
  • David W. Meek
  • Douglas L. Karlen
Abstract

Greater awareness of potential environmental problems has created the need to monitor total organic carbon (TOC) and extractable phosphorus (P) concentrations at a regional scale. The probability distribution of these soil properties can have a significant effect on the power of statistical tests and the quality of inferences applied to these properties. The objectives of this study were to: (1) evaluate the probability distribution of TOC and extractable P at the regional scale in three Major Land Resource Areas (MLRA), and (2) identify appropriate transformations that will result in a normal distribution. Both TOC and extractable P were non-normally distributed in all three MLRAs. Suggested power transformations did not result in normality, but a natural log and negative binomial transformation did produce distributions that met the assumptions of normality in most cases. Statistical analysis of TOC and extractable P data at the regional scale will need to take into account the non-normal distribution of these properties for accurate and precise estimates.

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0
Citation Information
John J. Brejda, David W. Meek and Douglas L. Karlen. "CHARACTERIZING THE STATISTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANIC CARBON AND EXTRACTABLE PHOSPHORUS AT A REGIONAL SCALE" (1999)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/douglas_karlen/41/