Life Sciences Commons^™

Method For Calibrating An Arduino-Based Soil Moisture Sensor Using Van Genuchten’S Equation, Victorino A. Bato, John Osbert Alindogan

The Philippine Agricultural Scientist

Instructions on building a do-it-yourself soil moisture sensor using Arduino microcontrollers abound on the Internet. These do-it-yourself soil moisture sensors are favorite projects by both plant and microcontroller enthusiasts because the parts are affordable and the end product is functional. In the absence of proper calibration, these soil moisture sensors cannot generate usable information on the status of plant-available-water in the soil. This research demonstrates the calibration of an Arduino-based soil moisture sensor using the soil moisture characteristic curve of a clay loam soil. Van Genuchten’s model was used to generate an equation and various parameters specific to the soil. …