On-Farm Demonstrations Lead to Soil Moisture Sensor Adoption in Florida's Suwannee Valley.

On-Farm Demonstrations lead to Soil Moisture Sensor Adoption in Florida's Suwannee Valley by Patrick Troy1, Joel Love, Charles Barrett, Kevin Athearn, and Bob Hochmuth 1North Florida Research and Education Center- Suwannee Valley, University of Florida/IFAS, Live Oak, FL Soil Moisture Sensors (or SMS) are a precision agriculture technology on the rise in North Florida. With the help of on-farm demonstrations and a grower/vendor survey, the Suwannee Valley Agricultural Extension Center loaned farmers SMS probes to evaluate their potential in vegetable and row crops over the summer of 2017. Though soil moisture sensors have been around for over a decade (in simpler forms), new equipment now provides 24-hour, multi-depth, sensing that can help guide irrigation timing and amounts. With regular field visits and online guidance, farmers were encouraged to use the probes for irrigation decisions on timing and amounts. The survey (n=14) found that over 600 SMS sensors are in operation in the region, representing almost 85,000 acres served by 8 vendors in North Florida. Of the 9 growers interviewed, 8 out of 9 indicated they have changed how they irrigate, 8 out of 9 saw savings in water, fuel, fertilizer, or electricity, and 7 out of 9 showed labor reductions. Collectively, the participitants are using 125 probes (~21% of all probes in the SRWMD) and collectively farm around 17,000 acres (~12% of SRWMD irrigated acres). Benefits varied for each farm, but most noted that continuous data availability on mobile devices allows for closer management of fields, especially geographically distant ones. It is evident by the survey, that soil moisture sensors are now widely used in the area, and they are helping growers manage irrigation more efficiently. With future on-farm demonstrations, we hope to start quantifying the impact SMS have on yields, crop quality, water conservation, and nutrient management.