Soil moisture content is a critical parameter in understanding the water movement in soil. A soil moisture sensor is a tool that has been widely used for many years to measure soil moisture levels for their ability to provide nondestructive continuous data from multiple depths. The calibration of the sensor is important in the accuracy of the measurement. The factory-based calibration of the soil moisture sensors is generally developed under limited laboratory conditions, which are not always appropriate for field conditions. Thus, calibration and field validation of the soil moisture sensors for specific soils are needed. The laboratory experiment was conducted to evaluate the performance of factory-based calibrated soil moisture sensors. The performance of the soil moisture sensors was evaluated using Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), Index of Agreement (IA), and Mean Bias Error (MBE). The result shows that the performance of the factory-based calibrated CS616 and EC5 did not meet all the statistical criteria except the CS616 sensor for sand. The correction equations are developed using the laboratory experiment. The validation of correction equations was evaluated in agricultural farmlands. Overall, the correction equations for CS616 and EC5 improved the accuracy in field conditions.
Agricultural irrigation is a primary user for freshwater withdrawal. Irrigation plays an important role in crop production, as it provides the benefit of reducing the effects of prolonged dryness and erratic precipitation. Center pivot irrigation system is the most common irrigation system in agriculture. As the center pivot irrigation system ages, the system could develop a leaking joint, clogged sprinklers, and physical damage. This can cause areas of non-uniformity that can lead to under-or over-irrigated in some areas of the land, resulting in excess energy use and cost, wasting resources, and environmental impacts. Thus, it is important to evaluate the performance of a center pivot irrigation system regularly to maximize return on investments and minimize wasting resources. This study focuses on evaluating the impacts and benefits of improved center pivot irrigation distribution uniformity by performing distribution uniformity evaluations pre-and post-retrofit. This study also focused on demonstrating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to assess the performance of the center pivot irrigation system in two irrigated farmlands. The Coefficient of Uniformity (CU), Distribution Uniformity (DU), and Scheduling Coefficient (SC) were calculated based on the catch can test data. The values were utilized to evaluate water and energy savings from the improved coefficients. The team has found that replacing sprinkler packages increased the CU from 78 to 89 and the DU from 77 to 82, and reduced the SC from 1.3 to 1.2 in Field A.
Irrigation plays a critical role in Michigan and Indiana, USA, supporting various crops such as commercial corn, seed corn, soybeans, potatoes, fruit and vegetables. Irrigated lands in Michigan and Indiana have continuously increased over the last 20 years. As Michigan and Indiana have experienced more erratic precipitation and warmer temperatures, more irrigated lands will be projected. This study focused on understanding the changes in irrigation in Michigan and Indiana using USDA NASS data. The observation of changes from 2002 to 2017 helped to identify the critical considerations for developing future irrigation research and extension programmes in Michigan and Indiana. The study found that continuation of the collaboration with stakeholders, including state regulators, government staff, commodity groups, the irrigation industry and farmers, will be important to disseminate the most up‐to‐date irrigation information effectively to farmers. As more new irrigated lands are expected, outreach programmes for the optimal design of irrigation systems for specific crop types should be developed. Moreover, an easy‐to‐use and affordable irrigation scheduling technology is needed to increase the adoption rate of scheduling tools, ultimately improving irrigation water and energy use efficiency and minimizing environmental impacts.
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