| Soil fertility assessment of vineyards in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain was performed using the minimum data set (MDS) established by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and soil fertility index (SFI) calculated with PCA and fuzzy mathematics. The investigated zone included the grape production regions of Luhuatai of Yinchuan, Ganchengzi of Qingtongxia, and Huangyangtan of Yongning. Sixteen soil physic\|chemical indicators were measured including organic matter, humus, fulvic acid, humic acid, humin, available potassium (K), alkaline hydrolyzable\|nitrogen (N), available phosphorus (P), pH values, total calcium (Ca), exchangeable Ca, total copper (Cu), available Cu, total boron (B), available B, and selenium (Se). Results showed that soil available P was the severe variation parameter; alkaline hydrolyzable-N, available K, available Cu, exchangeable Ca, humic acid, fulvic acid, humus, Se, available B, organic matter, humin, total Ca, total B, and total Cu were the intermediate variations parameters; and pH value was least variation parameter. The content of soil organic matter, humin, available B and available P in Luhuatai of Yinchuan were higher by 53.7%, 20.3%, 17.2%, 334.8%, 44.4%, 19.9%, 13.8%, and 15.4% than those in Ganchengzi of Qingtongxia and Huangyangtan of Yongning, respectively. The content of humus, fulvic acid, humic acid, alkaline hydrolyzable-N, available K, total Ca, exchangeable Ca, total Cu and available Cu in Huangyangtan of Yongning were higher by 13.1%, 6.1%, 9.9%, 5.9%, 25.8%, 4.5%, 63.7%, 36.1%, 30.6%, and 31.9%, 25.5%, 45.4%, 77.7%, 30.8%, 10.9%, 59.3%, 28.6%, 79.3% than those in Luhuatai of Yinchuan and Ganchengzi of Qingtongxia, respectively, while the soil pH value was lower by 4.28% and 4.95%, respectively. The content of total B in Ganchengzi of Qingtongxia was higher by 12.6% and 14.4% than that in Luhuatai of Yinchuan and Huangyangtan of Yongning, respectively. Through principal component analysis, the minimum data set was organic matter, pH value, available P, total B and available B for soil fertility evaluation of vineyards in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain. Comprehensive evaluation showed that SFI of Luhuatai of Yinchuan was 0.543 being classified as medium fertility, SFI of Ganchengzi of Qingtongxia and Huangyangtan of Yongning were 0.343 and 0.460, respectively, being classified as low fertility. According to analysis of correlation, SFI-TDS values were positively correlated with SFI-MDS values and the correlation coefficient reached to 0.914. Therefore, the minimum data set can be used to evaluate the soil fertility of vineyards in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain in Ningxia instead of whole data set. |