Modern Soil Moisture Monitoring for Improved Drought Resilience

Project overview

This 16-month collaborative project between three Drought Hubs aimed to improve horticulture producers’ drought resilience through the adoption of modern soil moisture monitoring technology.

In Western Australia, the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD), supported by the SW WA Drought Hub, helped to fast-track moisture monitoring practice adoption and improve irrigation scheduling in the Carnarvon and South-West regions.

The moisture monitoring technology used in this project is some of the latest of its kind and allows for remote monitoring, reflection of over a years’ worth of soil moisture information and live data harvesting.

This project has boosted growers’ confidence in using soil moisture monitoring to make better decisions about water resources and irrigation scheduling.

This practice has not only created a more drought resilient industry but also more profitable and sustainable agriculture businesses in Australia.

Impacts and results

Farmers growing crops such as apples, avocadoes and tomatoes were involved in the project due to their large contribution to horticulture in Western Australia. Fifteen growers were selected, five of each crop, to have the soil moisture monitoring equipment installed. These growers were from the Carnarvon horticultural district, the Perth Hills and in the South-West from Bunbury to Northcliffe.

These areas were selected for the project as they are experiencing a drying climate and may soon be required to implement soil moisture monitoring strategies to become resilient to drought or water scarcity conditions.

Wildeye supplied the equipment and online platform used in the project. The platform harvested soil moisture data collected in the field and displayed it in an easy-to-read graph, showing soil moisture over the last seven to fourteen days.

Each grower was provided with:

• The soil moisture monitoring equipment Teros 12 and EnviroPro.
• A pressure transducer to measure irrigation timing and duration.
• A logger and solar panel to harvest data from sensors and upload to server.
• An irrigation development officer to:
  • Install equipment in the field,
  • Provide training for growers on installation of equipment and interpretation of data,
  • Provide fortnightly guidance on soil moisture monitoring and irrigation scheduling practices.

Growers who participated in this project or attended the workshops and field days said they were more confident implementing soil moisture monitoring practices in their horticulture business.

Soil moisture monitoring has the potential to become a more mainstream practice in the years to come as growers become more familiar with collecting and interpreting data, and utilise third parties to assist with decision making.

This project was undertaken by the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development with support from the South-West WA Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub, through funding from the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund.

This was a cross-Hub collaboration between the South-West WA, Northern and Victorian Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hubs.