Abstract

The identification and assessment of inland valley soils in the Akure North Local Government Area (latitude 7°2’20”N to 7°23’30”N and longitude 5°8’20”E to 5°34’10”E) in Ondo State, Nigeria for swamp rice production was conducted between January and May 2014. The streams in the local government area were identified on the Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission imagery downloaded from the Global Land Cover Facility imagery site through path 190, row 055. The stream courses were generated using the Fill and Flow Direction/Flow Accumulation Tools in Spatial Analyst/Hydrology Tools in ArcMap while the streams were buffered at a distance of 100 m using the Analysis/Proximity/Buffer Tools to create the inland valley areas. Soil samples were collected to a depth of 25 cm from ten sample plots of 10 m x 10 m randomly selected in the inland valley areas for soil physical and chemical properties. The soils were suitable for rice production. The total area of 4,428.2 hectares generated as buffered zones around the identified streams constituted potential areas for the production of swamp rice. The cultivation of improved swamp rice varieties will increase the total rice production in the local government area.