Field performance of three real-time moisture sensors in sandy loam and clay loam soils

The study was conducted to evaluate HydraProbe (HyP), Campbell Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and Watermarks (WM) moisture sensors for their ability to estimate water content based on calibrated neutron probe (NP) measurements. The three sensors were in-situ tested under natural weather conditions over a 3-yr period in a sandy loam and clay loam soils planted to grass. The HyP, TDR and WM sensors were evaluated for their ability to estimate soil moisture contents by comparing their outputs with those of NP measurements. Results showed that HyP, TDR and WM provided different estimates of soil moisture contents in both soils. Nevertheless, our work suggests that soil moisture sensors including those used in this study can be made suitable for irrigation scheduling without in-situ calibrations by simply setting the upper and lower irrigation trigger limits for each sensor and each soil type. The upper trigger point occurs directly after irrigation event (near field capacity) and the lower trigger point is based on about 50% depletion of available water in the crop rootzone and is occurs prior to irrigation refill. This approach can significantly help irrigators to achieve their irrigation scheduling and productivity goals without consuming any time onsite or soil specific calibrations.