High-Resolution Soil Moisture Measurements in Rational Fertilization and Irrigation Methods as Part of the Sustainable use and Management of Soil Under Climate Change - DIY Solutions

Current climate changes, including drought, represent one of the most severe and extreme natural phenomena, directly affecting the environment, economy and society, and increasingly leading to soil degradation. In drought-stricken areas, losses in agricultural production are driving up food prices. The world's demand for water will continue to grow further in the coming decades. In view of the presented facts, there is a tremendous need for a systemic approach to saving water in the process of soil reclamation and conducting multidisciplinary research in this field. The problem of fertilization is linked to reasonable irrigation. These processes ought to be synchronized and run simultaneously, under the control by the system. This paper presents a prototype measurement probe as an element of a measurement network and the results of tests of its application in under use. The purpose of this research was testing a cheap DIY to solution identify the availability of water resources in the soil layer where the major plant root mass is found, i.e., to a depth of up to 110 cm, and to rationalize the management and improve the efficiency of water use during irrigation, as well as to monitor the migration of water in the soil in the era of climate change. The conducted tests have yielded concrete conclusions - current climate change is already resulting in unusual situations, including the different behaviour of water migrating through the soil. Considering that a wide variety of soils and geological systems are present, it is extremely important to understand these mechanisms in great detail, which makes the created solution feasible. Such a detailed analysis of water migration in soil under use can very successfully support, for example, a low-cost precision irrigation (preventing drought), or fertilization, indicating periods when and where to introduce nutrients after rainfall so that they naturally reach the depth of the largest root mass as quickly as possible. The DIY solution can be crucial in Third World countries by conducting at least single, cheap soil moisture measurements, and in many other places affected by the problem of water deficit, it can be an alternative to extend existing monitoring systems.