Water management

Soil moisture monitoring and irrigation management.

Measure • monitor • manage

Use less water and fertilizer – produce more with less.

Better knowledge of when to start and stop the irrigation will help protect the most important resource – WATER. Run your irrigation system when the plants ask for food to avoid fertilizer leaching and to save energy without sacrificing quality and yield.

Solutions

Pessl Instruments offers a wide range of hardware and software solutions for efficient and cost-effective soil moisture and irrigation management. Hardware devices monitor the soil (moisture, temperature, salinity, presence of nutrients), the plant (dendrometric variations…), the atmosphere (all meteorological variables, from which you can estimate the evapotranspiration), and also the irrigation system (flow, water level, pressure, pH and electrical conductivity of fertilizer…).

The measured values can be combined with site-specific weather forecasts and are accessible in near real-time on the FieldClimate platform. The weather forecast is updated on an hourly basis, available for a 3 to the 7-day window and includes a number of variables – quantity and probability of precipitation, temperature, wind speed/direction, leaf wetness, relative humidity, and evapotranspiration. This enables the user to implement the best soil moisture-irrigation strategy for the fields. For example, understanding soil moisture values in a dynamic root zone allows the definition of a crop and soil-specific growth season template, while near-real-time field measurements, combined with forecasted evapotranspiration; provide an insight into future water use.

Advantages

Water savings

Better timing and potential reduction of water use.

Higher yield

Safeguard and maximize genetic potential.

Better quality

Optimize quality based on crop health.

Saving of fertilizers

Reduce runoff or deep leaching of nutrients and optimize fertilizer use.

Crop health

Manage water for phytopathological adversities, stimulate root development and provide frost protection.

Security

Real-time alerting on a number of parameters, including refill and saturated soil moisture levels, pump activation or failure and traceability of all events.

Save time

Rationalization of business operations.

Lower environmental impact

Less water waste and groundwater contamination.

Applications

Irrigation and fertigation of numerous crops
Targeting yields in irrigated and dryland crops
Soilless crop irrigation
Sports lawns and golf course management
Management of urban green spaces
Frost alert and frost automation systems
Soil moisture analysis for flood monitoring
Forest applications for fire risk and tree health

iMETOS 3.3

A crop will not grow without water or soil moisture. The key, however, is determining when the plant needs water. Too much water can be more detrimental than too little.

How to define the right amount of water for the soil? The best answer to the dilemma is the iMETOS 3.3 weather station.

iMETOS 3.3 comes with a wide range of first-class soil moisture sensors that can be inserted into various soil depths. The sensors will supply the grower with the daily water consumption of the crop within the different soil layers as well as with the ET (evapotranspiration) data. This data through our cloud software solution (FieldClimate) is then used to determine the optimum time for irrigation. Our DSS for irrigation will help prevent both damages due to drought stress and excessive watering.

iMETOS 3.3 is a high-end weather station that has the widest range of flexibility when it comes to adding various sensors. But we have other less complex solutions for smaller fields and farmers who are just starting out with smart ag applications. You can find all our hardware solutions here.

Irrigation management

Within FieldClimate you are able to set and adjust a number of IRRIGATION MANAGEMENT SETTINGS:

Calculation of an average root zone soil moisture graph defined by the user (the upper full amount known as full point or field capacity and the lower amount or refill point).
Various sensor layers can be displayed in graphs in a number of formats, including standard, stacked or average.
Full and refill point budget lines are colour-coded so users can clearly see the range of soil moisture for optimal management – red (deficit), green (comfort zone) and blue (excessive soil moisture).

Other parameters and tools for a comprehensive UNDERSTANDING OF WATER AND SOIL MOISTURE MANAGEMENT:

Weather measurements and forecasts, such as precipitation amounts and timing.
Vapour pressure deficit.
Growing degree days (phenological stages).
Current and forecasted evapotranspiration ET0.

Pessl Instruments irrigation management systems can be used in all irrigated crops.

+38 years of experience have shown that growers can cut down on up to 50 % of irrigation running time and save energy, water, service costs, fertilizer and have higher yields with less input.

The crop shown in the graph is initially subject to two irrigation interventions on a daily basis. Thanks to probe monitoring of volumetric water content, it was observed that an acceptable soil moisture level for the crop could be maintained even with only one irrigation intake per day.

Result: Immediate 50 % water saving.