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A discussion on the significance associated with Pearson’s correlation in precision agriculture studies

A discussion on the significance associated with Pearson’s correlation in precision agriculture... Pearson’s correlation is a commonly used descriptive statistic in many published precision agriculture studies, not only in the Precision Agriculture Journal, but also in other journals that publish in this domain. Very few of these articles take into consideration auto-correlation in data when performing correlation analysis, despite a statistical solution being available. A brief discussion on the need to consider auto-correlation and the effective sample size when using Pearson’s correlation in precision agriculture research is presented. The discussion is supported by an example using spatial data on vine size and canopy vigour in a juice-grape vineyard. The example data demonstrated that the p-value of the correlation between vine size and canopy vigour increased when auto-correlation was accounted for, potentially to a non-significant level depending on the desired α-level. The example data also demonstrated that the method by which data are processed (interpolated) to achieve co-located data will also affect the amount of auto-correlation and the effective sample size. The results showed that for the same variables, with different approaches to data co-location, a lower r-value may have a lower p-value and potentially hold more statistical significance. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Precision Agriculture Springer Journals

A discussion on the significance associated with Pearson’s correlation in precision agriculture studies

Taylor, J.; Bates, T.
Precision Agriculture , Volume 14 (5) – Apr 23, 2013
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References (12)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Springer Science+Business Media New York
Subject
Life Sciences; Agriculture; Soil Science & Conservation; Remote Sensing/Photogrammetry; Statistics for Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry and Earth Sciences; Atmospheric Sciences
ISSN
1385-2256
eISSN
1573-1618
DOI
10.1007/s11119-013-9314-9
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Pearson’s correlation is a commonly used descriptive statistic in many published precision agriculture studies, not only in the Precision Agriculture Journal, but also in other journals that publish in this domain. Very few of these articles take into consideration auto-correlation in data when performing correlation analysis, despite a statistical solution being available. A brief discussion on the need to consider auto-correlation and the effective sample size when using Pearson’s correlation in precision agriculture research is presented. The discussion is supported by an example using spatial data on vine size and canopy vigour in a juice-grape vineyard. The example data demonstrated that the p-value of the correlation between vine size and canopy vigour increased when auto-correlation was accounted for, potentially to a non-significant level depending on the desired α-level. The example data also demonstrated that the method by which data are processed (interpolated) to achieve co-located data will also affect the amount of auto-correlation and the effective sample size. The results showed that for the same variables, with different approaches to data co-location, a lower r-value may have a lower p-value and potentially hold more statistical significance.

Journal

Precision Agriculture – Springer Journals

Published: Apr 23, 2013

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