Discussion of 'Calibration of the 10HS Soil Moisture Sensor for Southwest Florida Agricultural Soils' by David Spelman, Kristoph-Dietrich Kinzli, and Tanya Kunberger

摘要

The authors examined the Decagon 10HS soil moisture sensor in order to determine the accuracy of the manufacturer-supplied calibration equation on Southwest Florida (SWFL) agricultural soils. They found that the manufacturer calibration equation does not accurately predict soil volumetric water content (θ) within the ±3% accuracy range specified for the sensor, highlighting the need for site-specific calibration. Therefore, they developed four separate soil-specific calibration equations, one for each of most common agricultural soil types found in SWFL. All the studied soils were composed of greater than 97% sand particles, with minimal fines, as is common in the study region. The calibration was made between raw counts (RAW) and θ. In all cases, a strongly linear relationship between RAW and θ was observed.