Soil moisture and irrigation scheduling
A soil-moisture sensor measures the soil at the probe. On RowCodes it can start a run when that reading is below a level the farmer sets, on top of the clock schedule. It does not hold a run, skip a run, or interrupt a run that is already going. It does not measure the water you pumped.
What the product does with a probe
The clock schedule is the plan: which zone, what order, how long. Where a sensor is installed on that field, a run can also start because the reading crossed below the level you set. That start is in addition to the clock, not a replacement for it. A wet reading does not cancel a run the schedule already called for, and it does not stop a run that has started. A manual open offers 15 min, 30 min, 1 h or 2 h. A schedule runs the minutes you set. The valve still auto-closes on that timer if the signal drops.
The sensor does not know your allocation, your harvest window, or which blocks the irrigator wants held for a reason that is not moisture. Those stay decisions a person makes by editing the schedule or by leaving that zone on a manual open. One probe describes the soil around the probe. It does not describe a whole field, a neighboring block, or a set with a different soil.
What the number is
Depending on the sensor, the reading is tension, volumetric water, or the scale that sensor uses. Compare a probe with itself over time. Place it in the root zone of the crop you are actually irrigating, not in the dry middle of a road or under a leak at the riser. A probe in the wrong spot will start runs for a patch of soil the set is not farming.
Spring frost protection, if you do it with water, is a separate use of the same pipes. A moisture level written for July is not a frost decision. Someone owns that call. UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (opens in a new tab) is the agronomic reference for how a crop uses water. The scheduling guide is agricultural irrigation scheduling.
What a probe must not replace
Do not enter a soil-moisture reading as a flow total. Metered water is totaled as metered. A run with no meter but an entered flow rate is counted and labeled estimated, and it is never shown as metered. Water with neither is “not measured,” left out of the totals, and never shown as zero. A probe that “looks fine” does not answer a stuck valve or a pump that is on and moving no water. Flow and pressure, where you have them, are that check. The monitoring guide is how to monitor irrigation water use.
Soil moisture also does not certify a groundwater filing and does not raise yield by a published percent. It is an input to when a run may start. The schedule you wrote is still the plan. Crop-health imagery is a separate satellite view of the canopy, not a probe and not a meter.
How it sits next to the rest of the system
The confirm path is the same as a manual open: the valve is named, the shut-off time is shown, and Close stays available. If the field hub drops after the valve has accepted the run, the valve still shuts on its clock.
Tanks are a different sensor. Tank level is an alert and a reading for a fertilizer or water tank the farm has equipped. It is not soil moisture and it is not a flow total. The product page for schedules is irrigation scheduling.
A moisture start still names the valve and the shut-off time, the same way a clock start does. A soil start opens that one zone for its schedule’s minutes, only on a single-zone schedule. It does not start a sequence, and two zones on one pump that both read dry can both open. You set the level. You set the minutes. The probe only supplies the start.
Questions
Can the sensor keep me from watering a block that is already wet?
It cannot skip or hold a run. It can start a run when the reading is below a level you set, on top of the clock schedule. A run the clock already called for still runs.
Does the probe tell me how many acre-feet I pumped?
It tells you about the soil at the probe. Acre-feet come from a meter, or from an entered flow rate that is labeled estimated. Water with neither is not measured.
Keep reading
RowCodes runs the set from the phone
RowCodes can start a run when a soil sensor reads below the level you set, on top of the clock schedule, and it still shuts the valve off on a timer. Log in to see schedules on a farm you already run. Installers sign in on their own login.