IRRIGATION AND FERTIGATION CONTROL BASED ON PROBE READINGS
Good irrigation management contributes not only to the optimisation of water resources, but of all available resources. For a more complete control of irrigation and fertigation, Nutricontrol equipment can be combined with a wide range of probes that measure the parameters of humidity, temperature, electrical conductivity (EC) in soils and substrates, ensuring the inteligent management of the installation.
Soil moisture monitoring helps to control and adjust irrigation schedules. Adequate moisture, temperature and EC conditions at root level translate into increased and improved yield quality. In addition, information on the movement of water and salts in the soil is very valuable to avoid loss of water and fertilisers through deep percolation and, therefore, to prevent subsoil contamination. The probes are precise tools which, together with their easy handling, facilitate their installation at different heights in the soil profile.
An irrigation Schedule that takes into account soil moisture retention and crop coefficient allows, together with the use of soil moisture probes, to know the water requirements of the crop. The Nutricontrol units can decide when to start irrigation base don the data provided by up to two soil moisture probes and when to stop irrigation base don the values provided by a third probe. This programming option makes it possible to decide the optimum time to start irrigation and, at the same time, to avoid deep percolation losses of water and fertiliser when they have gone beyond the soil strip where the roots of the crop are located.
