What is soil moisture?
Soil moisture refers to the water content in the soil of a particular area. This can be expressed as volume or weight and is commonly measured in probes. There are various ways that water can enter a field such as artificial irrigation, natural rainfall, runoff, drainage, evaporation and transpiration. These factors can drastically affect the biome present, soil formation, structure, stability and can influence the environment in which the plants are growing. Having the right amount of soil moisture is important so as to ensure photosynthesis and the appropriate turgidity for the plant position. The health of the crops grown is directly related and influenced by the adequate and appropriate supply of moisture and nutrients in the soil.
What is a soil moisture sensor irrigation system?
Supplying water to the plants is of utmost importance and this can directly change the temperature and environment of the plants. The temperature of the plants can be changed by using transpiration methods. Studies show that plants and root systems grow best when they are in moist soil.
A soil moisture sensor is a specially designed sensor used to gauge the volumetric content of water within the soil. As the straight gravimetric dimension of soil moisture needs eliminating, drying, and even certain levels of sample weighting, these sensors measure the volumetric water content not directly but with the help of some other rules of soil like dielectric constant, electrical resistance, otherwise interaction with neutrons, and replacement of the moisture content. These sensors are normally used to check the volumetric water content, while another combination of sensors calculates a new property of moisture within soils.
Measuring soil moisture is very important for agricultural practices as it help farmers to manage their irrigation systems more efficiently. Knowing the exact soil moisture conditions on their fields, not only are farmers able to generally use less water to grow a crop, they are also able to increase yields and the quality of the crop by improved management of soil moisture during critical plant growth stages. This helps in providing the crops the exact amount of water needed and reduces the chances of overflooding or under irrigation.
Relatively cheap and simple devices that do not require a power source are available for checking whether plants have sufficient moisture to thrive for domestic gardeners and small-scale farmers.
Automatic controlled irrigation is the use of soil moisture sensor in the field that helps in collecting or monitoring soil information, field information, and crop growth information, and transmit the monitoring data to the head control centre, and issue corresponding irrigation management instructions to the terminal under the corresponding system software analysis and decisions are taken based on this data provided.
Importance:
The implementation of a scientific automated irrigation system specially designed to meet its exact purpose can save water resources and increase crop yields. The core of the automatic irrigation system is the using a soil moisture sensor to control irrigation. Soil moisture sensor and automatic watering system can minimize water waste which in return saves any unwanted expenditure on water resources. These systems have also shown to reduce energy consumption and labour costs which in turn brings down a lot of overhead expenses for the farmers.