Wireless Soil Sensor Improve Farming Methods

Researchers from Iowa State University (ISU) are currently working on wireless soil sensors that aim to improve farming while minimizing environmental impacts. Prototypes are already available, and these can collect and send information about soil moisture, with plans to include soil temperature and nutrient content in the future. They will work underground, which means they’re battery powered and need to be replaced when their time is up. Each prototype roughly measures 2″ wide and 4″ long and less than 0.5″ thick, and are meant to be buried around a foot deep in a grid pattern that stands 80 to 160 feet apart. These sensors will collectively send data along the grid to a central computer, which will subsequently take note of all this intelligence gathered for further perusal by farmers and researchers. Hopefully this will help ease the backbreaking work farming is often associated with.