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Application of a Wireless Sensor Network for Multi-Depth Soil Moisture Monitoring at Farm Scale in New Zealand’s Hill Country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2017

I. Hajdu  and
I. Yule
I. Hajdu*
Affiliation:
New Zealand Centre for Precision Agriculture, Massey University, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North, New Zealand
I. Yule
Affiliation:
New Zealand Centre for Precision Agriculture, Massey University, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North, New Zealand
*
†E-mail: i.hajdu@massey.co.nz
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Abstract

Hill country farms play a critical role in the New Zealand’s economy and precision agriculture solutions have been increasingly utilised to improve their profitability and resilience. Soil moisture, a spatially and temporally variable factor in pasture productivity, was monitored using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) technology deployed over a hill country farm in the North Island. Geographical Information System assisted spatial methodologies were applied to design a WSN-topography. The integration of spatially distributed sensors and multi-depth soil moisture measurements from various hillslope positions showed that root zone soil moisture was more homogenous as the mean soil moisture increased. Considerable differences were found in soil water profile response to significant rainfall events on steep, rolling and flat surfaces allowing us to construct a clearer picture of the topographical controls on the variability of soil moisture.

Keywords

soil moisturewireless sensor networksgeographical information systems
Type
Soil Sensing and Variability
Information
Advances in Animal Biosciences , Volume 8 , Special Issue 2: Papers presented at the 11th European Conference on Precision Agriculture (ECPA 2017), John McIntyre Centre, Edinburgh, UK, July 16–20 2017 , July 2017 , pp. 412 - 417
Copyright
© The Animal Consortium 2017 

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