How to Use Watermark Soil Moisture Sensors to Conserve Water

Transcription

1 How to Use Watermark Soil Moisture Sensors to Conserve Water Mark Holler Camalie Networks/Vineyards

2 Outline Part 1 Interpreting and Applying WaterMark Soil Moisture Tension Data Part 2: Wireless Soil Moisture Monitoring Technology What you need to know to acquire it, install it and maintain it.

3 PART 1: INTERPRETING AND APPLYING WATERMARK SOIL MOISTURE TENSION DATA

4 Irrigation Approaches Leaf Water Potential ET Soil Moisture Visual - Shoot tips Hybrid, Grower Considers all the above + quality and yield goals, long term vineyard history, cultivar, water availability, weather forecast, etc.

5 SOIL MOISTURE TENSION RELATION TO LEAF WATER POTENTIAL. Holler,Mark High Density Wireless Soil Moisture Monitoring for Deficit Irrigation Management at the ASEV conference in Portland Oregon showing that less labor intensive soil moisture sensing can substitute for manual leaf water potential measurements. June 19, 2008

6 WATERMARK SENSOR Resistor sensitive to soil moisture tension. Apply voltage, measure current between the concentric electrodes. R=V/I (Ohm s Law) Passive, no power required Some Capacitance in parallel Must measure quickly (100us) Granular matrix, 26 provides suction Gypsum Wafer, 29 saturates water before it gets to the electrodes, provides salinity independence Inexpensive, $39

7 TYPICAL IRRIGATION EVENTS Up on plot is dryer, Down is Wet. Water penetrates to 12 first then to 24 a day later finally 36 in 4 days. Soil moisture tension changes quicker at surface than deep, Slight overall drying trend. 3 weeks between irrigations. Soil Moisture Tension never gets too high, 150cbar is a good upper bound. Gap is due to network down.

8 TYPICAL SOIL MOISTURE TENSION TREND PLOT -- ONE YEAR Note one Irr. at Bud Break in May, Mid June Start Coarse/ sandy loam soils dry out to 36 in two weeks. Only 2 Irrigations/Month 7 total. Wet-Dry swing ~150 cbar Should have done more frequent irrigations, shorter duration. Should have done some post harvest irrigation.

9 FOUR DEPTHS, FINER SOIL Notice more variance in soil moisture the shallower the sensor. Deeper roots see less variance especially in finer soils like this. Only 8 Irr. events over season, but root zone moisture constant. Data from Calistoga, Sam Brannan Vineyards.

10 ROOTS ACTIVE, MIDRANGE DRY Vines were using all the water given, depleting soil mositure at 24 depth. In August the irrigator saw this and increased the frequency of irrigations. Good example of action taken based on Soil Moisture data.

11 MAINTAINING CONSTANT SOIL MOISTURE IN THE ROOT ZONE Seeing Drying conditions at 24 and 36 in Week 30 Timm reduced his irrigation interval from 6 days to 4 days rather than increasing the duration which would have increased SM variation in the root zone and allowed water penetration below the root zone. This data from porous volcanic soils around St. Helena. 25 irrigations over the season, Timer controlled irrigation.

12 LATE START (MID JUNE) FREQUENT(29) 2/WEEK SHORT (1-2 HOUR) IRRIGATIONS Wet-Dry swing only about 50 cbar. Vines see less soil moisture variance My opinion based on observation is that vines do better Used battery powered timers on blocks to achieve this. Ease of Irrigation has significant impact on water use.

13 PHASE LAG VS. DEPTH Can see delay in water penetrating, Slower change deeper Mid range driest shows that s where the roots are. Note late Irr start, June 10. Then two excessive irr. In July and August restart Rain at end of November.

14 LONG TERM PLOTS Sensors at 12 and 24 depths failed (value goes high) in year 7. Pioneers: Edgar Lantz - Calistoga, Timm Crull - St. Helena, Stage Coach

15 THREE PARAMETERS TO CONTROL Duration Interval First Irrigation How Long How Often and When When to Start Basics: Fine soils, slow perc. Longer Duration at night to prevent surface evaporation, lower flow drippers. Coarse soils, fast perc. More Frequent, Shorter duration anytime. Keep water from penetrating below the roots. Wait until the soil moisture depletes before starting irrigation. Its much later than you think especially with fine soils. Biggest savings come from this. Simplest approach, identify a desired Soil Moisture Tension Level via visuals/leaf water potentials and then adjust durations and intervals to maintain it and reduce excursions. Usually let it go dryer toward season end for quality but, maybe wetter if the buyer isn t watching and you need the tonnage$.

16 Soil Moisture Tension vs. Soil Water Content Soil Moisture Tension is more relevant for Roots. It includes sensitivity to soil granularity. Water content has to be calibrated for each soil.

17 Soil Moisture Tension vs. Soil Moisture Content Side by side comparison. Note Water Content range over year 28.% to 38%, noisier output, Watermark sensor saturates under wet conditions. Watermark vs. Echo EC5 At Camalie Vineyards in the same hole 3 apart, 36 deep, in fine clay soil.

18 PART 2: WIRELESS SOIL MOISTURE MONITORING TECHNOLOGY What you need to know to acquire it, install it and maintain it.

19 System Architecture Field Stations Internet Gateway Web Services

20 PROVIDERS Irrometer Davis Instruments Ranch Systems Advanced Viticulture Picovale Camalie Networks Rain Bird Climate Minder Toro McCrometer Onset Decagon Spectrum Lindsay Growsmart, Fieldnet Galcon Libellium Adcon Campbell Scientific gthrive SenseTerra Plexus Dynamax Isaacs Fixed function inexpensive Fixed function, inexpensive Full Featured but pricey Mark Greenspan, R.S. reseller John Duckhorn Napa + 50 miles only 900MHz 2 mile Major Player, New 2.4GHz, half mile Spain Oldest, 20 years Research South Australia Walla Walla Wa. Non-Web

21 COST PER NODE + 3 WATERMARKS INSTALLED AND 1 YEAR WEB SERVICE Cost/node Annual Web Service Camalie Networks $760 $39/No. of Nodes Irrometer + Distributer/Field Service Comparable Rain Bird Climate Minder NA Ranch Systems RS300 NA guess $1500 Note: Prices are very hard to come by. Call for quote Node ~50% Installation ~20% Sensors ~25%

22 $2,500 $2,000 Progress in Wireless Monitoring & Control $1,500 $1,000 $2,500 Node Price $500 $0 Adcon $995 Ranch Systems $595 eko Pro $320 Camalie System 3 Node : A solar powered wireless field station with more than 2 mile range, and >= 4 sensor interfaces Sensors not included

23 INSTALLATION -SITE SELECTION Typically one node per irrigation block at the most typical vine. You want to irrigate the largest number of vines right first. You don t want to over irrigate ¾ of the vines to get the driest 25% of the vines enough water. Add more drippers at the dryer vines. Second year sometimes add node at dryest location in block. Density varies from 1 node/acre to 1 node/100acres depending On the variance of the soils, slope, exposure, cultivars planted.

24 7 Nodes on 50 acres

25 17 Nodes on 1500 CoachVineyards

26 SENSOR POSITION ALWAYS DIRECTLY UNDER DRIPPER

27 INSTALLATION -HOLE DRILLING

28 INSTALLATION HOLE DRILLING

29 INSTALLATION WIRE MANAGEMENT stallpics2.html

30 WIRELESS TRANCEIVER ON STAKE Stainless Hose clamp to ¾ x 10 ft. heavier gauge conduit, Hose Clamp conduit in highway stake groove. Hedging and machine harvesting require removal of the nodes. Removal requires disconnecting sensors, removing hose clamp to stake and taking away pole with transceiver still attached. Keep track of which node came from where as data is associated With node number. Nodes don t have GPS because they are Seldom moved.

31 TRANSCEIVER NODES Radio Computer Antenna Battery, Solar Panel Enclosure S. Connectors

32 INTERNET GATEWAY Data IN from the field on the antenna Data OUT on the cat5 ethernet cable or WiFi No Router reconfiguration required. Others use a cellular link and put this unit outdoors with solar power supply. More expensive and requires data plan. $1680 vs. $375

33 Web Servers Your Data is stored here and backed up The Software that presents your data is here IT professionals that keep your data and the software online are here Here could be anywhere

34 DATA VIEWING PLATFORMS Anything with a browser. phone, tablet, laptop, desktop It s very desirable to be able to get to your data no matter where you are Including in the vineyard. Cell phone 2 finger zoom makes the plots very readable even on a small screen.

35 CONCLUSIONS: Soil Moisture Data will enable you to make better use of your water and thereby get by with less. With a little luck you will end up with better grape quality and/or yield as well. Get started with a limited, focused goal but, think ahead. You will want the option to extend your system to gather other information for you and enable remote/automated control of your irrigation in the long run. Water Metering, Flow rate, Cum. Volume Water Levels, Reservoir, Tank, Well Manifold Pressure Weather Station for ET, PMI, Temp, Humidity, Rain, Wind Pump and Valve Control New data always yields unexpected results and insights.

36 OTHER RESOURCES Mark Greespan, Advanced Viticulture Monitoring Soil Moisture for Irrigation Water Management, Hanson, Orloff, Sanden, UC Davis publication er%20management-1.pdf