YOUR INDUSTRY
Assisting growers with digital monitoring of soil moisture
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BY TRUYEN VO REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, VEGETABLESWA
t was mentioned in an article in the summer 2020 edition of WA Grower (Water and fertiliser use efficiency improvement — an extension service update) the VegNET WA Regional Development Officers (RDOs) has worked closely with growers and related stakeholders to create value by setting up a field demonstration of digital soil moisture monitoring on tomato and chilies fields in April 2021. Technically, the digital soil moisture monitoring requires a few practices that most growers haven’t used before. These included: • Soil moisture monitoring probes installed at various depths to monitor the soil moisture profile over time • Digging to expose the root zone to acquire knowledge on the root zone concept and soil characteristics
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WA Grower SPRING 2021
Assisting growers with digitally monitoring of soil moisture
• Downloading an app to their smartphones to read the soil moisture monitoring results • Accessing and understanding the data outputs presented in graph form on digital devices such as smart phone or computer • Including the soil moisture monitoring results in the decision making of irrigation program.
There was some concern from the growers involved that the technical skills required to set up the system and to gain confidence to adopt this innovation may be too difficult.
Growers experienced better crop performance and reduced water and fertiliser loss.
As a result of these demonstrations, involved growers experienced benefits of better crop performance and reduced water and fertiliser loss.
To manage these concerns and barriers, the project was carefully designed to provide grower participants with ‘one-on-one assistance’ needed to bring them up to the competency level required to operate the system themselves.
