PHOTO: ROEL DIJKSTRA
WATER MANAGEMENT ▶▶▶
Market insight into moisture meters and a glimpse of the future
As risk of drought increases in many parts of the planet, farmers are turning to irrigation to ensure an adequate harvest, but they need to minimise costs. We took a close look at the newest soil moisture sensors, what they cost and where the technology is headed in the years to come.
BY TREENA HEIN I
n Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA in particular, increasing numbers of growers already have irrigation in place or are planning to use it. While it’s a substan-
tial investment, it’s one that obviously miti- gates against one of farming’s most serious an- nual risks, namely drought. Indeed, scientists are predicting that a ‘megadrought’ is already underway right now in the western USA. How- ever, the advent of better solar panels and bat- teries, Internet of Things (IoT), wide-ranging
9 valuable tips
From suppliers about investing in soil mois- ture sensors: •Try out a sensor and look at key aspects such as ease of installation, durability, sim- plicity and price (Sensoterra)
•Cheaper is not better. Avoid sensors that are affected by temperature and salinity (Dynamax)
•Cloud-based irrigation scheduling pro- grammes offer the best value and flexibili- ty (Lindsay Corporation)
•Make sure there is a solid track record of use and reliability. Talk with your local irri- gation or farm supply store, local conser- vation district and university extension agents (Irrometer)
•Work with professionals, and do not be- lieve everyhting start-ups tell you (Pessl In- struments)
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•Ask for a starter kit (GroPoint) •Look at the science behind the sensor and its durability. Another important factor: how easy is it to install the sensor, set up a logging station, and access and interpret the data. Some sensors fall into the plug- and-play category while others will require more complex programming and setup (Meter Group)
•Determine if the readings are easy to un- derstand (number of mm of water needed by the crop or a PF curve without interpre- tation) and also choose a sensor that is plug and play (does not require hours of installation) (Dacom)
•Look for ease of installation/use. Start small, get used to the system and what it provides, and then decide whether to scale up (Beacon Fields)
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 22 May 2020
internet networks and cloud computing are re- ducing the costs of irrigation systems, while at the same time system capabilities are evolving.
Accurate measurement of soil moisture is obvi- ously key but, according to Jonathan Wisler (Sensoterra), developing world agriculture is still in the early stages of integrating soil mois- ture sensors into irrigation systems at scale. “For many, it is still a challenge to get the right soil moisture data from the field and into a digital farming system.” Various irrigation sys- tems now on the market use soil moisture data
to provide differing levels of automation in the creation and implementation of irrigation scheduling. We contacted 19 companies (10 of which responded) to provide an overview of what they offer and also to get their sense of future directions.
Various parameters Some companies such as Dynamax focus on enabling growers to control irrigation them- selves. Dynamax provides soil water content as a percentage or water-by-volume data, along with typical soil type calibration curves. Similar- ly, Dacom provides soil moisture, temperature and precipitation pattern for each 10 cm layer in an online platform. Irrometer’s sensors meas- ure soil water tension, “a real-time measure- ment,” says Brian Bourbonnais, “that allows growers to make decisions on the fly.” Sensoter- ra offers a soil moisture data platform that can be calibrated to soil type and integrated with other tools to combine data from weather fore- casts, temperature and other readings, allow- ing growers to make ‘educated’ irrigation tim- ing decisions. Sentek provides irrigation decision-making in real time, using measure- ments of soil moisture, root location, onset of plant stress and depth of irrigation application. Valley Irrigation (Valmont) takes information on applied irrigation (e.g. from pivots and linears, automatically collected from its system or en- tered manually) along with data from soil mois- ture probes and updated weather forecasts to provide recommended irrigation schedules. Meter Group offers the ability to sense plant water availability across varying soil conditions and crop types in order to schedule irrigation. Pessl Instruments provides as much automa- tion as a client wants in order to make irrigation decisions and Gottfried Pessl says “technically, full automation is not a problem.”
Physical soil-moisture sensors Looking ahead, there are differences in opin- ion as to how long physical soil moisture probes will be used, and what’s likely to come as soil moisture sensing and irrigation systems evolve. GroPoint’s David Illing, for example, be- lieves soil moisture probes will be required “for some time”, but that their capabilities will ad- vance along with advances in cloud comput- ing and wireless technologies. He thinks that at this point, “it is time to engineer (versus
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