Plant Soil Environ., 2019, 65(6):290-297 | DOI: 10.17221/72/2019-PSE

Evaluation of DualEM-II sensor for soil moisture content estimation in the potato fields of Atlantic CanadaOriginal Paper

Aitazaz A. Farooque¹, Mahnaz Zare¹, Farhat Abbas^*,1,4, Qamar Zaman², Melanie Bos¹, Travis Esau², Bishnu Acharya¹, Arnold W. Schumann³

¹ Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, Canada

² Department of Engineering, Agricultural Campus, Dalhousie University, Truro, Canada

³ Citrus Research and Education Center, University of Florida, Lake Alfred, USA

⁴ Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan

The conventional gravimetric methods of estimating soil moisture content (θ) are laborious, time-consuming, and destructive to agricultural fields. We evaluated the performance of DualEM-II sensor in non-destructive way of θ prediction and for predicting θ variations within potato fields in Atlantic Canada. Values of θ were measured from four potato fields in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island using a pre-calibrated (R² = 0.98) time domain reflectometry (TDR) from root zone of potato tubers under grid sampling arrangements. Horizontal co-planar (HCP) and perpendicular co-planar (PRP) readings were taken using DualEM-II sensor from the same locations of θ measurements. There was a better correlation between PRP and θ (r: 0.64-0.83) was calculated than between HCP and θ (r: 0.41-0.79). There was no significant difference (R²: 0.60-0.69; RMSE (root mean square error): 2.32-4.02) between the θ values measured with TDR (θ_M) and those predicted with DualEM-II (θ_P) confirming that the use of electromagnetic induction technique, evaluated during this study, is labor saving, quick, non-destructive, and accurate and can be considered a precision agriculture tool for efficiently managing soil water in potato fields.

Keywords: irrigation management; monitoring water stress; precision farming; soil variability; tuberous crop

Published: June 30, 2019  Show citation