Remote Monitoring of Soil Conditions for Establishment and Maintenance in Landscape & Turf Assets
By Michael Bradbery MA Ag. Turf – Technical Services Manager, Turf & Landscape ANZ
Introduction
Construction, establishment and maintenance of green assets consume significant budgets and demand successful outcomes. Innovative advances in remote monitoring are a gamechanger, bringing greater control and surety of positive outcomes to fine turf and open space management.
Green assets such as tree and turf landscapes are the final step in many large and costly community projects. Successful establishment of the vital green component of the project is critical and easily subject to damage or failure. Programming irrigation or water trucks etc. is rarely based on actual soil conditions. This can lead to over and underwatering and delayed establishment or failure. However, the game has now truly been changed; by incorporating wireless remote soil sensors into these landscape projects, resources can be applied only when required, conserving water and labour without asset loss.
Lack of real time data for soil moisture during the establishment and maintenance phase is a common issue. Advances in weather forecasting data and apps and real time monitoring sensors provide more accurate and site-specific soil information to ensure correct plant maintenance and establishment.
Allocating resources of labour and water to new and existing green assets is substantial and sometimes a limitation to a successful outcome. Green asset managers now have the ability to make more detailed and informed decisions than ever before. And applying accurate input decisions based on real time sensor data can greatly save resources and improve project outcomes.
Many landscape maintenance teams are asked to do more with less or find efficiencies. Using tools that can improve resource allocation decisions can provide considerable savings in products and labour, and even potential cost savings for water and power use.
Water Resource Allocation During Establishment
Green assets such as trees, shrubs, and turf have a specific soil moisture requirement during the susceptible establishment phase following planting. The use of in-ground soil moisture sensors to monitor real time conditions can allow better allocation of labour and water resources to reduce plant damage or loss during this process. In ground remote soil sensors give actual soil moisture conditions which can only be guessed at from local weather observations.
Ongoing Management of Green Assets
Moisture management is obviously a critical component of ongoing maintenance, especially in turf and landscape assets. Improving irrigation application decisions will benefit plant health and save resources. Over application of irrigation can be just as damaging as under application resulting in wet weather damage to susceptible soils resulting in compaction or root damage from anaerobic conditions.
Using In Ground Sensors to Monitor Field Playability
During periods of wet weather assessing field conditions across large council LGAs can be very labour intensive with physical inspections required for opening or closing each facility. With input from in-ground sensors outdoor field coordinators have moisture percentage readings on their phones, giving greater knowledge of conditions and rainfall in each location. This can greatly improve efficiency of the assessment process which may be required after each rainfall event prior to weekend sport.
Using In Ground Data for Maintenance Application Timing
Soil temperature is the key marker of many preventative applications for protecting turf from weed germination to insect hatching. Common summer weed and insect emergence occurs from 13 to 18°C soil temperature. Using soil temperature from the GreenCast® Connect App and real time data from the SPIIO® Soil Sensor provide the best information to time applications of what can be costly and critical annual treatments.
GreenCast® Connect App
Monitoring soil temperature and many other parameters relevant to turf can be done via the Syngenta GreenCast® Connect app. It includes parameters that are not typical for a weather app including Soil temperature, Evaporation, Leaf wetness, Dew Point, Net Water Gain /Loss, Growth Potential etc. These and many other features are available on the basic free version.
Incorporating Soil Sensors
The use of sensors to identify the soil temperature, soil moisture and salinity from location to location or full sun to shaded areas can greatly assist decisions of inputs of water or pesticide treatments. Greater visibility of these parameters across your green space helps to reduce turf or plant stress, which in turn can lead to stronger healthier turf and/or plants. These stronger plants can require less nutrients, and be more resilient to weed invasion, insects and disease, thus reducing chemical inputs.
SPIIO® Soil Sensors can be placed at the desired root zone depth, are wireless and have a battery life of 3-5 years. A simple connection to the local mobile network transfers readings to the cloud service which can be accessed anywhere on your phone or through the web-based portal. This real-time data can be shared with all staff members or relavent parties to monitor irrigation function, irrigation setting requirements, rainfall impacts etc.
Labour Efficiencies
Having spent many hours walking sports facilities after rainfall to assess closure requirements I can see the benefit of having constant data on soil moisture percentage. Building the correlation of physical on-site assessments with those from in-ground sensors can enable quicker response and decisions not requiring daily physical assessments.
Physically inspecting 50 or 100 sports fields once, twice or more times a week can be very time consuming or beyond capability. Having made decisions and then receive further overnight rain in some locations means guessing or more physical inspection on Saturday morning before play. With multiple grounds, this can be impossible to meet normal commencement or play times. Having a sensor to provide readings showing on site soil moisture changes overnight from rainfall can quickly allow decisions to be upheld or altered if required.
Saving Water
Using sensors across large green facilities can provide more accurate data to make irrigation decisions, i.e. know how much soil moisture resulted from rainfall and how uniform it fell across the site/sites. Observing the actual change in soil moisture content is far more useful than rain gauge or BOM records based on large areas and subject to wide variability.
This data can help answer questions like –
Which sensors across the LGA received the rainfall? Did the soil reach field capacity? How many mm of rain does it take to reach field capacity? Are the set minutes of irrigation reaching the desired soil moisture content? Am I over watering or underwatering in a particular area? How much is shade or soil type impacting soil moisture content? Am I overwatering in some locations based on sensor data?
Healthier turf and potentially reduced use of water and electricity are likely with more accurate soil data monitoring.
Moisture content can be monitored by each sensor or grouped for averages.
Poor Water Quality
For those using irrigation water that contains salts such as effluent supplies or can increase in salinity during dry periods monitoring soil salinity in real time can be a great tool. With the use of the SPIIO® Soil Sensor you can set a warning level for salinity for when you need to act which may require a flushing irrigation cycle or transfer to another water source for irrigation use.
Set Your Own Warning Parameters
Within the GreenCast® Connect App or web-based tools you can set the warnings for the levels you require. Whether moisture content, temperature or salinity you set the various levels you desire for warnings such as percentage moisture, which is considered Very Wet, Wet, Optimal, Dry, Very Dry. These then show in a colour range which is easy to identify on the app or web portal when checking conditions. The warnings set by the user are then pushed through notifications to the mobile, app and web portal for immediate consideration.
Light/Shade Data
The SPIIO® Soil Sensors are portable and can be moved to sites where closer monitoring is required – whether that is new sites, turf areas or sites where growth issues exist. They can also be used to build data visible light levels. If shade is impacting areas of the site and you need to prepare information for management, you can compare readings from a sensor placed in the shade and one in a comparable area of full sun. These can be set up temporarily to assist plant/species selection or landscape design and management.
SPIIO®/GreenCast® Subscription
The sensors come under an annual subscription plan based on small to large volumes. With the sensor subscription, the Pro version of GreenCast® Connect is included which inputs the sensor data into the App and Web Portal as well as providing other features.
Summary
Managing green assets across large sites or multi-site local government areas demands extensive resources which are increasing in costs. Using resources effectively and efficiently is paramount whether it be fertilisers, pesticides, water or labour. Technology that can assist with making improved decisions and achieving better outcomes or resource efficiencies can easily pay its way. The GreenCast® Connect app and input from SPIIO® Soil Sensors will enable councils to improve labour and resource efficiencies across their assets under management.
For more information visit syngentaturf.com.au or contact your local Syngenta Territory Sales Manager
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