Robust Soil Water Potential Sensor to Optimize Irrigation in Agriculture

Extreme weather phenomena are on the rise due to ongoing climate change. Therefore, the need for irrigation in agriculture will increase, although it is already the largest consumer of water, a valuable resource. Soil moisture sensors can help to use water efficiently and economically. For this reason, we have recently presented a novel soil moisture sensor with a high sensitivity and broad measuring range. This device does not measure the moisture in the soil but the water available to plants, i.e., the soil water potential (SWP). The sensor consists of two highly porous (>69%) ceramic discs with a broad pore size distribution (0.5 to 200 μm) and a new circuit board system using a transmission line within a time-domain transmission (TDT) circuit. This detects the change in the dielectric response of the ceramic discs with changing water uptake. To prove the concept, a large number of field tests were carried out and comparisons were made with commercial soil water potential sensors. The experiments confirm that the sensor signal is correlated to the soil water potential irrespective of soil composition and is thus suitable for the optimization of irrigation systems.