Probe Locate

Created by Info Admin, Modified on Fri, 7 Jun at 11:02 AM by Info Admin

Soil Moisture Probes

Soil moisture probes provide valuable information to inform irrigation and other management decisions. However, moisture probes take readings from a limited volume of soil (often not much larger than the size of a fist). These readings are then used to make decisions across an entire field or zone. As soil is inherently variable, care must be taken when selecting a probe location. The Probe Locate tool can help increase the benefit of using soil moisture probes by identifying appropriate probe locations which are representative of the field or zone. If soil texture varies significantly within a field, the use of zones and multiple soil moisture probes should be investigated.

Probe Site Maps

Probe site maps are built automatically from EM and an elevation derivative such as Slope. They show areas in the field that represent the majority soil type and are suitable to place a probe based on slope. Utilizing EM and Elevation data provides the most effective probe site map; however, other individual layers and combinations of layers can be used in the tool as well. For example, if a yield layer is selected, the optimal areas of the probe site map will be the most average areas of yield in the field.

To create a Moisture Probe Layer and plot a Probe Location follow the steps below.

Steps:

1. Select either the 'Probe Locate' button in the Right Click Menu in view or the 'Probe Locate' tab in the Zone/Locate tool. The steps listed below apply to both.

2. Select an EM layer and an elevation derivitave layer such as slope and click 'Create Zones'.

3. In the displayed map, place a point by clicking in the 'go' zones. The 'go' zones represent soil that is sutible for probe placement. It is worth noting that more than one point can placed.

4. Below the map, you can choose to save the layer as a Moisutre Probe Layer or as a Management Zones Layer. Click 'Save points' to save the probe locations. To clear the probe locations click 'Clear points'.