Effect of Vegetation Cover for Olive Trees Orchards in Optical Characteristics of Fadhlia Region Soils in Nineveh Province/ Northern Iraq

This study was held in Fadhlia region, 22 km northeast of Mosul city, province center, and aims at knowing the effect of olive trees in soil optical properties, three sites of olive orchards were chosen with different ages and agricultural processes, the age of trees in first site is 200 years old, second site is 10 years old and third is 25 years old, three soil pedons were drilled under olive trees, and three others in uncultivated land, and several photographs for soil sites were taken using a digital camera to calculate RGB values, the color of the soil was then measured in field and laboratory using Munsell soil color charts, and use the Spectroradiometer in laboratory to draw the spectral reflectance curves of soil, the results obtained that RGB values were high in dry soils and decrease in moist state, and the percentage of spectral reflectance was lower than that of (47.3%) in the surface horizon soil of p5 under olive trees, hue, value and chroma were different between the layers of study sites in the field and laboratory for dry and moist state, and low values of the spectral reflectance were observed in surface horizons of most soil pedons at the wavelength (1750) nm .