“Soil sensor” is the name usually given to a sensor that is installed in the soil and measures some physical characteristics to monitor the soil’s behavior.

Soil sensors serve multiple purposes in diverse applications. We may highlight water dams and slopes monitoring, construction and agriculture as possible uses for them.

The most common physical soil characteristics monitored for agriculture are water tension, moisture and temperature. We have a very interesting article about soil water tension and soil moisture, click here to read it if you are interested in more information about this subject.

As well as weather stations and rain gauges, there are soil sensors that require manual reading and other ones that transmit the reads automatically.

Automatic soil sensors: completely automatic data collection. The sensors communicate electrically with telemetry systems that process and store the sensor data. Some devices, as the ones provided by Agrosmart, provide real time transmission and monitoring of this data even for sensors installed in extremely remote locations, without the need of cellular coverage or wireless connectivity.

Regular soil sensors: require that someone visit the sensor installation site to collect the data. The tensiometer is the most famous in this category.

The sensors must get installed accurately and carefully by professionals with experience and training regarding each sensor type and model. Damaging the sensor's delicate partes may deteriorate its operation even before starting to use it.

It’s imperative to install sensors respecting the characteristics of each project and site to achieve adequate measurements. Sensor type, installation placement and depth are defined based on a deep analysis. Knowledge about the soil type, irrigation type, desired data use, soil compaction, installation location, productivity historical and other ones are very important in this process.

The amount of sensors depends on the intended objective and an evaluation of the property’s soil.

A good starting point for areas with irrigation is using the irrigation sectors themselves (plots, pivots, sectors) in order to estimate the amount of locations that will get monitored, one for each sector with independent irrigation.

More specific objectives and rainfed areas require a deeper analysis.

Get in contact with us through the chat in the bottom left corner or get in contact with our sales team at comercial@agrosmart.com.br.

Agrosmart has a highly skilled team of agronomists, weathermen and dedicated algorithms to select the best locations for the installation of sensors. This results in the monitoring of the areas that better represent your fields, providing coherent irrigation recommendations and efficient use of the resources.

We are pioneers in multiple agriculture technologies in Brazil. Agrosmart has installed thousands of sensors in all Brazilian regions, Israel, United States and multiple countries in Latin America since more than five years, with a broad experience in many soil types.