Modern banking apps let us check our balance any time, which is important if you need to make a withdrawal. Soil moisture is just like money in the bank – great if you’ve got it, but when you are hoping to convert it into grain or feed it’s handy to know whether there is enough to meet your needs.

Soil moisture probes can bring the convenience of a banking app to the soil moisture bank. This information can help with decision making across a range of areas including nitrogen management, irrigation planning and marketing.

Keeping track of cotton irrigation

Cotton grower Nick Beer says that the decision to install in-season moisture probes has revolutionised how he manages the watering program for his irrigated cotton. Based at Spring Ridge in the NSW Liverpool Plains, he grows irrigated and dryland cotton, sorghum, wheat, barley, chickpeas and faba beans.

“We grow somewhere between 500 and 800 hectares of irrigated cotton each summer. Everything is overhead irrigated, so we need to be on the front foot and keep the water up to the crop. If we get behind, we just can’t catch up.”

Our probes measure water to 90cm and we start watering once the moisture gets down to 35cm. before we installed the probes, we had to push in a hand probe or dig a hole. With paddocks spread over 15 km, the associated rain gauges provide valuable intelligence. Rainfall can vary from 20mm at one end of the property to 50mm at the other end, so we need to know which paddocks to water first.

With these probes, water stress is a thing of the past.

– Nick Beer

Measuring moisture in a dryland scenario

Both Agriculture Victoria (AgVic)and the Western Australian Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) manage a network of permanent soil moisture probe at sites around the state. Both networks measure soil moisture, at 10cm intervals, between 30cm and 100cm.

A DPIRD soil-moisture probe was installed at grain grower, Andrew Todd’s Dowerin property in WA’s Central Wheatbelt around eight years ago, using funds from the GRDC and the WA government’s eConnected Grainbelt Project.

Andrew says the probe has confirmed that calculations based on rainfall data and known water use efficiency provide a good guide for management decisions.

“Probably the main eye opener for me was the massive increase in the amount of water the crop needs as it moves into the reproductive phase.”

The network has now been refurbished and the data made available online. Further development by DPIRD as part of eConnected Grainbelt is underway to improve the accessibility of this data and make it available to industry partners.

The AgVic soil moisture monitoring probes have been in continuous operation for 10 years and is supported by industry-specific interpretation through newsletters targeting the cropping, dairying or livestock pasture industries. Users can subscribe or view live probe data online via extensionAUS for 17 cropping and 18 pasture sites.

Andrew Wall is in a prime position with one of the AgVic probes just over his back fence, and another five in the local area. Andrew and his wife Penny run dryland mixed-farming business at Raywood in North Central Victoria producing wheat, barley canola, and oaten hay along with sheep grazed on lucerne pastures or crop.

“We have consistent soil types in this area, which means that when we cross reference the rain gauges with the probe data we can be fairly confident about what is happening in the soil.”

They sow early as the warmer soils boost crop establishment, and crop grazing in winter prevents the crop from flowering too soon, reducing the risk of frost damage. 

“Knowing where the moisture was this year gave us the confidence to sow early despite a dry start. We knew it would take about 10 to 15 mm to get the crop started and about 25mm in total to get the roots down to the stored soil moisture.”

“In the past the data has informed nitrogen management decisions. We could see that topdressing in late August was not worthwhile as there wasn’t enough moisture in the profile to support the additional growth.”

Pasture management planning

Yarram dairy farmer Shelley Field has one of AgVic probes under a centre-pivot spray irrigator. She says that the probe definitely saves the business money, because the information from the probe has given them the confidence to reduce irrigation frequency. They have been able to use information from the probe to guide their irrigation plans for other paddocks on the property.

“In the past we would dig a hole to decide whether it was time to irrigate, but now we just check the soil moisture levels on the phone making it both easier and more accurate,” said Shelley.

The Fields’ grass-fed dairy is mostly sown to permanent pasture, but in the last year the probe also helped them to track the water needs of a summer millet crop sown as part of their paddock renovation program.

“In February, we debated irrigating but the information we had from the probes, combined with a good forecast for upcoming rain, gave us the confidence that we had enough moisture in the profile to hold off. Given how wet things got after the rain event, we were more than happy with the decision.”

Shelley says the probe has really helped them learn more about their soil water needs and “has certainly helped to settle a few arguments around the farm”.

Agriculture Victoria agronomist Dale Boyd says that the probes are a valuable tool to add to the toolbox, but the data needs to be interpreted carefully. He advises producers to ground truth the data by digging the odd hole and to compare it with other tools such as the Grains Research and Development Corporation’s (GRDC) SoilWaterApp (SWApp).

Regardless of industry, the value of the soil moisture monitoring needs to be investigated on a case-by-case basis and its value depends on careful interpretation and cross-referencing against other management tools.

More information

Agriculture Victoria

• Information on the AgVic soil moisture monitoring probes
• Online data for the AgVic probes is available via extensionAUS
• Dale Boyd, 03 5482 0439, dale.boyd@agriculture.vic.gov.au 

Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD)

• DPIRD soil moisture probe network
• Darren Gibbon, 08 9368 3406 darren.gibbon@dpird.wa.gov.au

Producers

• Nick Beer, 0429 868 920 nick.beer@merrilong.com.au
• Andrew Todd, 0428 323 027, andrew@laharnafarms.com.au
• Andrew Wall, 0428 361 262, apwallfarmbusiness@gmail.com
• Shelley Field, 0427 816 116, shelleyfield887@gmail.com

RECENT POSTS

• Climate tools developed with farmers for farmers
• Indian Ocean driving wetter than average winter–spring outlook
• ‘My Rain Gauge is Busted’ podcast series
• Health and productivity focus helps ride out extremes
• Probing the value of soil moisture monitoring
• The good, the bad and the ugly – charting the impact of East coast lows
• New forecasting tools aid Red Witchweed cull
• Western climate drivers take the road less traveled
• Consensus on forecasts informs decision making
• It takes teamwork to tackle the climate challenge
• What do forecasts really mean?
• Finding the window of opportunity with new forecasting products
• What La Niña means for Australia this summer
• Strict attention to moisture conservation drives grain production in the Wimmera
• How to assess your ‘green date’ probability using the CliMate app
• Why the late shift in the winter 2020 rainfall forecasts?
• What goes around – may bring rain to northern Australia
• ‘You got to know when to hold ‘em’ – managing livestock in extended drought
• Climate plan may hold keys to a better deal on farm finance
• Future-proofing the dairy industry in uncertain times