Author(s)

José O. Payero^1*, Michael W. Marshall¹, Bhupinder S. Farmaha¹, Rebecca Hitchcock Davis¹, Ali Mirzakhani Nafchi²

¹Clemson University Edisto Research and Education Center, Blackville, USA.
²Cornell University, New York, USA.

Active soil moisture monitoring is an important consideration in irrigation water management. A permanent and readily accessible record of changes in soil moisture can be used to improve future water management decision-making. Similarly, accessing stored soil moisture data in near-real-time is also essential for making timely farming and management decisions, such as where, when, and how much irrigation to apply. Access to reliable communication systems and delivery of real-time data can be affected by its availability near production fields. Therefore, soil moisture monitoring systems with real-time data functionality that can meet the needs of farmers at an affordable cost are currently needed. The objective of the study was to develop and fieldtest affordable cell-phone-based Internet of things (IoT) systems for soil moisture monitoring. These IoT systems were designed using low-cost hardware components and open-source software to transmit soil moisture data from the Watermark 200SS or ECH₂O EC-5 sensors. These monitoring systems utilized either Particle Electron or Particle Proton Arduino-compatible devices for data communication. The IoT soil moisture monitoring systems have been deployed and operated successfully over the last three years in South Carolina.

Soil Moisture, Internet of Things, IoT, Arduino, Sensors, Irrigation

Payero, J. , Marshall, M. , Farmaha, B. , Davis, R. and Nafchi, A. (2021) Development and Application of Cell-Phone-Based Internet of Things (IoT) Systems for Soil Moisture Monitoring. Agricultural Sciences, 12, 549-564. doi: 10.4236/as.2021.125035.