With agricultural production on the rise and (locally) less or less dependable rainfall, it’s becoming more important to manage the available water as best as you can. Sensors can help to get the necessary insight.
retrofit) new sensors that leverage proven soil moisture-sensing methods/technologies,” but also focus on “simplicity of installation.”
Similarly, those working at Meter Group feel that, while data from soil moisture probes is still critical, it’s important to embrace “the need to collect quality hyper-local sensor data and translate that to a holistic view of the field by combining it with remote sensing and modelling systems,” explains Kersten Camp- bell. Sentek’s Peter Buss also takes the view that the irrigation information system will be “multi-level.” Larissa Hendriks (Dacom) expects that in future, irrigation systems will integrate data from various sources to predict soil mois- ture content, but that data from soil moisture sensors will always play a role.
Wisler at Sensoterra believes growers will need fewer soil sensors in future and that it will be possible to estimate soil moisture “by using his- torical data about water penetration in your crop as well as soil type, combined with infor- mation from your irrigation controllers”. For his part, Andrew Olson(Valley) thinks “some emerging technologies could potentially be
used in place of soil moisture probes, as grow- ers become more accustomed to technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.” He reports that Valley is working on “a truly autonomous pivot” through a partnership with Prospera Technologies.
Pessl Instruments is currently using AI to ana- lyse evapotranspiration, satellite pictures with NDVI indices, soil moisture and weather fore- casts to create irrigation scheduling recom- mendations. Similarly, Bourbonnais at Irrome- ter thinks future soil moisture sensing technology for high-precision irrigation will be similar to tech in use today, but will evolve with advances in areas such as communication networking. It’s his view that newer non-con- tact methods so far only give a surface or very shallow penetration reference, which is not very useful for determining the irrigation requirements for a crop.
‘Full automation with IoT’ And while Vasudha Sharma believes that full automation of irrigation can be achieved with IoT and other technologies, “we are still short of research on validating the accuracy of
suggestions/predictions”, as the “underlying fundamental relationships of soil water dynam- ics and crop response under various manage- ment systems, climates and soil types are not fully developed.” The irrigation specialist at the University of Minnesota is excited, however, about developments such as the ‘Internet of Underground Things’: IoT sensors and nodes beneath the soil communicate among them- selves about soil moisture and other plant health aspects, and of course also to above the ground to optimise irrigation scheduling. As to whether soil moisture sensors as we know them could be superseded by new technologies, Sharma believe it is possible.
Lindsay Corporation, however, already offers irrigation scheduling that involves no soil sen- sors. With information on for example soil type, crop type, planting date and weather, the company’s software can determine both daily crop water usage and irrigation requirements, explains Albert Maurin.
Of the range of soil sensors now available on the market, on the next page there is a partial list from the companies that responded.
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