The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) has published a new standard for testing soil moisture sensors used in landscape irrigation. It is published as ANSI/ASABE S633 Testing Protocol for Landscape Irrigation Soil Moisture-Based Control Technologies.
This new standard provides a test method to validate the responsiveness to changing soil moisture conditions of soil moisture sensing devices that integrate with irrigation controllers to better manage water resources in landscape settings.
This new standard outlines a procedure to test a soil moisture sensor and interface device’s response to changes in soil moisture conditions in a media that simulates soil.
The test procedure covers soil water content and soil water tension sensors. The standard provides a method, using two different media, two water salinities and three different water depletion levels, to determine if the sensor and associated interface device will enable/disable an irrigation event at preset or selected soil water values.
