Effects of irrigation scheduling approaches on soil moisture and vegetable production in the Northeastern U.S.A.

The Northeast United States is a temperate region that has historically experienced even rainfall distribution across the agricultural growing season. Due to climate change, seasonal precipitation and temperature dynamics are shifting, causing many farmers to rethink their approach to irrigation. Soil-water sensing technology, including tensiometers and granular matrix sensors, are often used by farmers to increase water use efficiency. However, adoption of these technologies is low in the Northeast. We conducted a field study to assess the potential of soil-water sensing hardware and software to improve crop outcomes in temperate agricultural regions such as the Northeast, and a survey to better understand farmer preferences for using soil moisture sensors and associated data. The survey involved two vegetable farmer industry associations, and focus groups at four agricultural conferences. We found a diversity of preferences among farmers when it comes to when and how they would like to access soil-water data. The cost of cloud-based data collection and storage is a barrier for some farmers, and they question the economic benefits of investing in these platforms. Additionally, we conducted field experiments in two locations across two growing seasons to investigate how using three irrigation strategies (feeling the soil, granular matrix sensors, and timers) affect soil-water conditions, leaching, and crop yield and quality. We found no significant effects of irrigation strategy on yield, though our results suggest other advantages in using soil moisture sensors. For example, the use of sensors increased the proportion of days during the growing season in which soil-water was in the optimal field capacity category. Therefore, using these sensors will reduce potential environmental risk associated with N contamination of groundwater.