# Soil Moisture Monitoring Tools



## Movingshrub (Jun 12, 2017)

I am really trying to find a good way to maintain the right of irrigation that prevents me from having to look at my rain gauge every day or the historical precipitation over the last few days.

Does anyone use anything to measure the amount of moisture in the soil versus just measuring in the amount of precipitation?

I have seen things like a soil moisture sensors, such as these:

http://www.rainbird.com/landscape/products/accessories/smrty.htm

https://www.hunterindustries.com/irrigation-product/sensors/soil-cliktm

And on the other hand, there are tensiometers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensiometer_(soil_science)


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## dfw_pilot (Jan 28, 2017)

Here's what I use.


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## chrismar (May 25, 2017)

dfw_pilot said:


> Here's what I use.


Your link is broken, but the error is quite amusing:



> Not Found
> 
> The requested URL /Under communism you buy everything from a single state outlet, whereas under fully-mature capitalism you buy everything from Amazon. was not found on this server.
> 
> Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.


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## dfw_pilot (Jan 28, 2017)

Haha, whoops! I'll fix it.

Fixed. My copy and paste had that funny quote in it.


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## Movingshrub (Jun 12, 2017)

I appreciate the replies.

I installed a sprinkler system based on a Rainbird design in June prior to sprigging.

I cross checked the amount of water used, relative to my run time, based upon the amount of water allegedly put out per minute.

My five zones put out a combined 77.97 gallons of water a minute, based upon the nozzle performance charts. To get a half inch of water, I have to run each zone for an hour. That's a total of 4,678 gallons of water. My yard is about 0.3 acre. I'm aiming for a little bit more than 1/2" of irrigation at a time. According to the USGS, to get 1/2" of water for 1 acre, I would need 13,577 gallons, multiplying that by 0.3 = 4073 gallons. It looks like I could reduce my run time by about 7-8 minutes per zone. Furthermore, the projected output of the system, mathematically, matches the amount of water going through the meter. With that all being said, it costs me about $13 each time I irrigate my lawn, which provides some perspective in terms of calculating potential savings from irrigating strategically versus just on a set schedule.


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