As farmers, we are responsible for so many decisions in our work. We must juggle fertility management, planting, pest management, harvest, processing, marketing, financial management, and the list goes on. Irrigation management involves its own set of decisions: when to water, for how long, and how to get water to the crop. Too little water and our plants are stressed and photosynthesis is shut down. Too much water and our plants drown; we leach out precious nutrients and face unnecessarily high water pumping costs. Simply put, smart irrigation is using technology to make more informed decisions, streamline irrigation cycles, and adjust our management to changing conditions with minimal effort.
Smart irrigation can take a diversity of forms. Most notable among these are smart irrigation controllers. A simple controller turns valves on and off. A typical irrigation controller would have preset irrigation start times and durations. In contrast, smart irrigation controllers use additional data to increase or decrease irrigation duration in order to save water. These controllers can be linked to local weather reports, soil moisture probes, rain gauges, pressure sensors, and flow meters – all of which inform irrigation automation. With access to Wi-Fi, many of these systems provide information directly to a smart phone allowing the farmer to manage irrigation from anywhere there is cell reception.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2016), use of smart irrigation technologies can reduce water use by 20% to 50%. All this equates to reduced operating expenses and potentially improved yields.
For example, smart controllers use local weather data that skip irrigation cycles when there is a high chance of rain in the forecast, reduce run times at lower temperatures, and increase irrigation duration on days of high daytime temperatures.
A controller can be accompanied by a water flow meter which detects how much water is going down the pipe at any given time. The addition of a flow meter allows real-time water use data, but also the ability to track water use day-to-day and year-to-year. Because the controller identifies which valve is on at any given time, the farmer can track water use for each individual irrigation zone–informing water use on different parts of the farm and crop-types. Controllers outfitted with flow meters can sense when there is an abnormally high flow rate (indicating a leak or break) and send an alert directly to a smart phone, allowing the farmer to shut down irrigation remotely. Read more about Water Flow Meters here.
Another piece of smart irrigation equipment are moisture probes which allow the collection of information on soil moisture underground in the root zone. When linked to smart controllers, moisture probes can help adjust irrigation cycles according to soil moisture data.
There are also many moisture probe systems not linked to controllers that can track and report soil moisture data from remote locations using long range radio waves (LoRaWAN). In circumstances where irrigation automation is not an option, such as remote locations where Wi-Fi is not available or pumps must be manually turned on, LoRaWAN is a technology that can be used for informed irrigation management. Read more about Soil Moisture Monitoring Probes here.
While there is no replacement for careful observation, experience and farm know-how, smart irrigation technologies offer a means of refining and improving water management. By integrating tools like smart controllers, predictive weather forecasting, real-time soil moisture data and water usage, growers can automate watering cycles and optimize resource use. Taken together these management tools can help farmers reduce pumping cost while improving crop yield and quality.
You can read some Examples of Smart Irrigation Controllers and how they can assist in irrigation management here.
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” — Leonardo da Vinci