Soil moisture plays a crucial role in agricultural production and plant gardens. Nutrients in the soil provide nutrients for healthy plant growth. Providing water to plants can also change their temperature. The temperature of a plant can be changed by water using methods such as transpiration. Plants that grow in moist soil also develop better roots. Extreme soil moisture levels can guide anaerobic conditions that can encourage plant growth and soil pathogens. This article discusses an overview of the soil moisture sensor, working principle and it’s applications.

What is a Soil Moisture Sensor?

The soil moisture sensor is one kind of sensor used to gauge the volumetric content of water within the soil. As the straight gravimetric dimension of soil moisture needs eliminating, drying, as well as sample weighting. These sensors measure the volumetric water content not directly with the help of some other rules of soil like dielectric constant, electrical resistance, otherwise interaction with neutrons, and replacement of the moisture content.

The relation among the calculated property as well as moisture of soil should be adjusted & may change based on ecological factors like temperature, type of soil, otherwise electric conductivity. The microwave emission which is reflected can be influenced by the moisture of soil as well as mainly used in agriculture and remote sensing within hydrology.

These soil sensors normally used to check volumetric water content, and another group of sensors calculates a new property of moisture within soils named water potential. Generally, these sensors are named as soil water potential sensors which include gypsum blocks and tensiometer.

Working Principle

This sensor mainly utilizes capacitance to gauge the water content of the soil (dielectric permittivity). The working of this sensor can be done by inserting this sensor into the earth and the status of the water content in the soil can be reported in the form of a percent.

This sensor makes it perfect to execute experiments within science courses like environmental science, agricultural science, biology, soil science, botany, and horticulture.

Soil Moisture Sensor Applications

The applications of moisture sensor include the following.

Agriculture

Landscape irrigation

Research

Simple sensors for gardeners

This is all about the soil moisture sensor. From the above information, finally, we can conclude that this sensor is used to gauge the soil’s volumetric water content, which makes it perfect to make experiments in the science field like agricultural science, soil science, horticulture, environmental science, biology, and botany.