Maintaining soil moisture at optimum levels can increase crop yields and profits.
Maintaining soil moisture at optimum levels can increase crop yields and profits by:
•Maximising nutrient and mineral availability
•Ensuring fertilisers are not flushed from the root zone
•Reducing disease susceptibility
•Increasing oxygen levels in the soil
•Improving soil structure
•Minimising the effects of moisture stress
•Maximising fruit size and quality.
Available water for the crop
It is important to realise that the same percentage of water in different soil types yields different amounts of 'available' water for the crop.
An instrument that gives a direct indication of water availability (i.e. how difficult it is for the crop to draw that moisture from the soil) would therefore be much better than one that indicates the percentage of water in the soil.
Capacitance and some other probes indicate the percentage of soil moisture, whereas tensiometers (such as the Soilspec Tensiometer System) indicate soil moisture availability.
Cost effective and reliable
The combination of an accurate soil moisture measurement tool and a good irrigation strategy allows for informed decisions to be made.
A record of soil moisture readings reveals how changing conditions affect water requirements and can help plan future irrigation strategies.
Measuring soil moisture can be expensive and difficult but tensiometers remain a simple, cost effective and reliable method to measure soil moisture availability, especially when numerous sites are required.
For contact information see Tree Fruit March 2020
