EnviroPro Soil Sensors

This information applies to all customers that have the 80cm EnviroPro soil moisture probes fixed to their in-field nodes.

What information does the soil sensor record and display on The Yield app?

We use the EnviroPro soil sensors which record 8 different depths – 10cm, 20cm, 30cm, 40cm, 50cm, 60cm, 70cm and 80cm.

The capacitance sensors record soil moisture by volumetric water content, and soil temperature by degrees Celsius. Soil moisture is impacted by rainfall levels, irrigation and fertigation.

Visibility of soil moisture indicates the effectiveness of your irrigation program at all 8 depths measured by the EnviroPro 80cm probe. This shows a detailed picture of exactly what is occurring in your farm’s soil profile and allows you to better respond to irrigation and rain events.

Data for soil moisture and soil temperature will be displayed at all 8 depths - under Growing Conditions in the The Yield mobile app, and when viewing Historical Data in the Analytics portal. 

Soil temperature insight:

• Soil re-radiation
  • soil captures and stores radiation from the sun by day
  • re-radiates heat back to the atmosphere by night
    • the more energy the soil is able to intercept and store by day, the higher the night-time soil temperature and the longer it takes the surface to fall to below 0 degrees Celsius.
• sandy and peat soil store and conduct heat less than loam and clay soil
• darker soils absorb more radiation than light coloured soils
• wet soil:
  • can hold 4 times more heat than a dry soil
  • will conduct heat to the soil surface faster than a dry soil
  • a larger area of moist soil will store more heat and, so, conduct more heat 
  • the surface minimum temperature is higher for a moist soil

Soil moisture insight:

• Different soil types react differently – your site might have different soil types at different locations that experience the same rain event, however display different reactivity when viewed within The Yield app.
• If you're not seeing the expected reactivity for a probe, there are some manual checks you can carry out to rule out possible on site issues:
  • Irrigation changes, such as blockages or sprinklers, moved away from the probe
  • The sensor sitting inside of a ‘wetted area’ of a dripper or sprinkler
  • The soil has reached saturation point at one or all soil depths, therefore is unable to take on any additional water.
• Hot and dry over the summer months? The soil can harden and can limit soil moisture reactivity to irrigation and rain as you come out of the summer months. It could take multiple rain events to soften the ground, and ‘normal’ reactivity to be seen in the soil.