DIGGING DEEPER: How Soil Monitoring Technology is Boosting Yields and Soil Health
Keeping an eye on soil moisture is critical to maintaining soil health because it directly impacts plant growth, microbial activity, and nutrient availability. When moisture levels are just right, plants can absorb nutrients efficiently. However, too much or too little moisture can lead to problems like root rot or drought stress.
“Monitoring soil moisture goes beyond the pivot,” says Kathleen Glass, vice president of marketing for AquaSpy. “Continuous below-ground soil moisture monitoring technology lets growers precisely track salinity, temperature, and the active root zone.” AquaSpy’s advanced layer-by-layer soil moisture technology is one tool that helps growers maintain healthy, productive soil. It can help increase crop yields and soil health through:
Controlling Salinity
Salt buildup in soil can harm plant health, reducing yields or even leading to crop loss. While salt deposits may be easily spotted, salinity often occurs deeper in the soil where it’s not visible. AquaSpy’s cutting-edge technology monitors salinity at different soil depths, helping growers keep salt levels under control.
Preventing Lodging
Lodging, where the stalk breaks below the ear in corn, can cause significant losses in yield. This often happens when there’s too much moisture, leading to waterlogging, or too little, causing drought stress. AquaSpy’s soil moisture monitoring helps prevent these extremes, ensuring crops get just the right amount of water, which reduces lodging and supports stronger, healthier stalks.
Managing Cover Crops
Cover crops are an excellent option for reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss, but there is some concern that they might increase water usage. However, studies show that cover crops can improve water infiltration and retention, which benefits the actual cash crops.
AquaSpy’s technology allows growers to track how cover crops affect soil moisture, helping them make data-driven decisions that improve water usage and soil health.
Regenerative Ag Trials
Regenerative practices like no till and crop rotation are gaining traction, but many growers still want to see how these methods will affect their water usage before fully committing.
“AquaSpy’s technology lets growers run field trials tailored to their unique conditions,” says Glass. “By comparing soil moisture, temperature, infiltration, and crop moisture uptake layer by layer, farmers can see firsthand how these practices affect their crops and make smart decisions based on real-time data.”
In addition to AquaSpy’s current offerings, the company is also focusing on nutrient management, particularly reducing nitrate levels to improve soil health and minimize runoff.
“Soil leaching is a major concern, and many states have introduced incentives to encourage nitrate reduction,” says Glass. “But we’ve found that periodic soil testing doesn’t give growers the full picture they need to manage nitrate levels effectively. To tackle this challenge, AquaSpy is developing a new sensor array that builds on its layer-by-layer monitoring approach. This new system will continuously track moisture, temperature, and salinity while also adding measurements for nitrate and redox, which indicates what’s occurring with oxygen levels in the soil and whether nitrification or denitrification is taking place. The early results are promising, and the company plans to conduct more extensive field trials in the coming months, with a commercial launch expected in 2025.
AquaSpy’s innovative soil moisture monitoring technology offers a powerful tool for growers looking to improve soil health for optimized crop yields. By providing real-time, layer-by-layer insights into critical factors like moisture, salinity, temperature, and nutrient levels, AquaSpy empowers farmers to make data-driven decisions that enhance both productivity and sustainability.