Taking Action Against Avocado Tree Canopy And Health Variance
Complete your cultivation insights with tips, success stories, and the latest product updates from woodpecker.
Complete your cultivation insights with tips, success stories, and the latest product updates from woodpecker.
A young, progressive grower in the Texas High Plains manages 9000 acres of cotton farms with a third of these fields irrigated. His irrigation strategy had been to follow age-old irrigation practices that involve using multiple wells to pump water from the Ogallala aquifer throughout the growing season. As the hot, dry and windy weather that characterizes the Texas High Plains can result in plant water stress affecting yield, growers on the side of caution and over-irrigate.
This cautious approach may waste precious groundwater by not taking advantage of the soil water stored from occasional precipitation events. Until now the grower and his neighbors have only guessed the amount of water available for crops in the soil profile. With dwindling groundwater levels, he decided to explore technologies that provide soil water status in the crop's root zone.
EnviroPro multi-depth soil sensors were installed in a 200-acre drip irrigation field just before planting. A clean 3-ft hole was augured in the dry and hard sandy clay loam soil for this installation. The sensors measured soil volumetric water content, soil temperature and electrical conductivity (EC) data every 4-inch section, from soil surface to 3-ft below. A long-range radio gateway was installed on-site to collect data from all sensors in the vicinity (2+ mile range on flat terrain).
A solar-powered, wireless weather station and rain gauge were also installed at the site to track precipitation and estimate potential evapotranspiration. Soil water data was available to the client immediately via Iris Central web and mobile application. The application provided near real-time data and historical trends (for 24 parameters transmitted hourly).
To enable faster decision making, the irrigation application summarized the sensor information in an easy-to-read format. By combining soil water, weather station, rain gauge, crop growth stage and weather forecast data, Iris Central’s soil water advisory provided current and future crop water requirements.
Based on the volumetric water content (VWC) sensor data at the top few inches of soil he was able to irrigate precisely and set the right conditions for seeds to germinate. As the sensors were installed before the planting season, he was also able to monitor soil temperature every day to accurately determine the right conditions to plant cotton seeds.
Over the course of the season water use gradually increased as the plant entered the early stages of growth. The large field was divided into four zones for easier irrigation management and each zone was irrigated in rotation, once every four days. As the plant developed further and the canopy reached its highest density, soil water consumption increased drastically as the roots were able to access water from deeper layers of soil. During this peak irrigation season all pumps are typically run continuously but this grower noticed that the soil water content was higher than expected at deeper levels even when the surface is bone dry. With the fear of stressing the plants in his mind, he still made the decision to turn off irrigation for more than a week, while his neighbors were continuing to pump from deep wells. Irrigation was restarted for all zones after this period and this data-driven decision saved an enormous amount of precious aquifer water.
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