Site-specific irrigation decisions require information about variations in soil moisture within the rooting depth actively being used by the crop. Producers have been using soil moisture sensors to make irrigation decisions, and it has been shown that soil moisture sensors can reduce water usage without reducing yields. There are still unanswered questions on improving efficiency with soil moisture sensors based on density and location of sensors within a field. This three-year study uses sensors to evaluate the spatio-temporal variability of soil moisture across an 18-ha production field in a corn/soybean rotation. The IDW results show that when uniform irrigation applications are made to the field, fewer sensors that are placed in better locations throughout the field can be as useful as a densely gridded array of sensors. Although, if variable rate irrigation (VRI) is being used, a dense array could be used the first season to fine tune management zones.

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