Viability of the humidity sensor in the control of irrigation in vine

ARTICLE TFG "Study of the viability of the humidity sensor in vine, " Plantae Sensor ", as an indicator of the water content in the soil and irrigation control".

Precision agriculture

The term precision agriculture refers to those techniques that aim to optimize the quality and quantity of agricultural production, reducing the variability of any farm to the minimum possible value.

For this, it is necessary to be able to interpret the large amount of data that the tools of this type of agriculture provide us, thus being able to make efficient use of them.

Technical information of the test on the viability of the humidity sensor in vine

The objective of the work referred to in this article is to study the behavior of the moisture content of the soil and relate it to the hydric state of the vine.

The test was carried out in a Morata de Tajuña vineyard in Madrid, of which the following are known:

The edaphic characteristics thanks to the construction of a pit.
Climatic characteristics due to the presence of a meteorological station on the plot itself.
Also other agronomic characteristics that play a fundamental role when studying the behavior of the vineyard in question.

The monitoring of the plot consisted of the installation of PLANTAE humidity sensors, measuring at 4 depths of soil (30, 50, 70, and 80 cm).

After the installation and calibration of the equipment, both humidity and water potential were measured with the Scholander-type pressure chamber on a weekly basis from June 11 to September 10. The humidity measurement is carried out automatically, every hour, storing the data in the cloud. Instead, the water potential data is measured in the field at solar noon.

The humidity sensors and the water potential were measured in the sample strain of each of the blocks, so that in total we have 12 measurement points.

In summary, the objective of the test is, through the relationship between humidity and water potential, to determine, on the one hand, the depth at which root activity is most relevant, as well as to decide which measurement depths are more representative to monitor. a plot of similar characteristics.

TEST RESULT AND STATISTICS

The result of the test shows us that there is root activity up to 70 cm, and that at 50 cm we find the highest correlation between the water status of the plant and the soil. (Figure 28)

In addition, in the case of wanting to obtain the highest correlation between these two variables, the ideal thing to do is to monitor the plot at 50 and 70 cm, since these 2 depths are the ones with the greatest relationship. (Figure 33).

Another objective of the viability of the humidity sensor in vines is to determine the humidity values that correspond to these limits, in order to control the irrigation dose without the need to use the pressure chamber.

The limit below which we must not place ourselves before flowering is -0.8 MPa, which for those dates corresponds to a humidity% of 45%.

On the other hand, the limit for the maturation period should move around - 1.2MPa, which translates to 41%. Therefore, in order to correctly interpret the data received from the Plantae sensors, we can use these values as a reference, as long as it is a vineyard with similar characteristics.

Conclusions of the viability of the vine moisture sensor and added value

The passage of time makes precision agriculture part of the daily life of farmers, in order to facilitate field work, and above all to optimize limited resources, thus resulting in lower costs and therefore less Bigger benefit.

Thanks to these new tools we have been able to do this work, in order to know the relationship that exists between soil moisture and the water status of the plant. The main conclusion obtained from the work, and its objective, has been to determine the depth at which the root activity is greater for this vineyard, 50 cm.

Thanks to this conclusion we can ensure that the reliability of complementing the irrigation system with the Plantae humidity sensors provides us with a correlation of 75% for a single depth of measurement (50cm) and of 85% if we measure at 50 and 70 cm.