Monitoring Soil Moisture

[tmbrown97]

Hi All,
 
Though many of you have had quite the winter, in California we're starting off the summer with one of the worst droughts in history.  On top of that, about 3 years ago I re-landscaped my back yard (suburban tract home - only 1/10th of an acre so just nice plants/trees) and most of what we put in has already died.  Our front yard is always a muddy mess even when it seems like I hardly water (yet the grass dies if I turn off the sprinklers); my back yard is hit and miss depending on the area.
 
So - What's the best way to accurately keep an eye on soil moisture?  I don't want to spend $50 per plant area if I can avoid it, and I don't want anything unsightly or in the way of mowing - but wouldn't be opposed to something discreet if it gets the job done.  Front yard is a 20x50 foot grass area and another tiny piece 20x20 between my neighbor's driveway and mine along with some planter areas; back yard is in the midst of going artificial turf but has about 5 separate distinct planter areas.  I do have LV conduit to many of those areas that feeds into my garage; some would be impossible to retrofit but I have power in all but 1 I could access.
 
I want to be able to track if I need to tune up the drip system and adjust the watering schedules to match.  Watering is handled by the Elk hooked to the automatic sprinkler zones, and the timers are controlled by counters in the M1.  I have a license for HomeSeer Pro (but barely set up yet), and I have Ethernet/power and an Elk subpanel in the garage; from the garage to the yard I have LV and HV conduit (LV is empty but feeds two critical areas in the yard and enters the house at the Elk subpanel.  The yard is small enough that wifi, Z-Wave, Zigbee, even Bluetooth could work.
 
Any ideas?  I was initially wondering about 1-wire but I haven't found the best links on soil moisture sensors.  But I've wanted to get a Brultech GEM which supports 1-wire so maybe that's still an option; I wouldn't be opposed to throwing a Pi or something out there or could do a POE switch and anything ethernet - again I just want to keep things relatively simple.  I'm not opposed to changing batteries 1-2 times/year if needed; I even have a box full of DS10a's and an X10RF receiver - so lots of available options that I could do just about anything with.  I also don't necessarily need 100% automation - though the closer I can get the better; I'm fine monitoring the values and adjusting; maybe over time I'd develop the HS scripts to adjust the timing for me based on the results somewhat tailored to my unique conditions.
 
Thx! Looking forward to hearing what you guys have had success with!

 

[pete_c]

@Work2Play
 
Here over the years have added many mostly wired analog sensors to the sprinkler control software.  Its been now some 10 years.  Initially started with a one wire weather station and other 1-wire devices (temperature, humidity, Dallas tipping bucket, leaf sensors, et al). 
 
I am particular about how the grass looks and I have over the years been able to tweak using the software much most recently as our average water rates here have gone up some 400%.  Still here have a wireless CM11A inside of the rainbird box connected to a Rainbird rain sensor (well never really adjusted) as an experiment.  Its been years and I never did change the battery on it and it still works just fine.
 
Not wanting to customize my scripting (or using plan old timers in Homeseer) I went to using mcsSprinklers and evolved a bit with it over the years with its inherent improvements.  It was always running on Homeseer until recently when I moved it to a small Arm based device inside of the old Rainbird box. 
 
I did see over the years that the most data utilized did come from temperature, UV sensors, wind, humidity and rain sensors.  Yeah; did also try the 1-wire gypsum wired soil sensors to play with.  They did work for the particular area; but not really for all of the 10 zones (~1 acre)  being watered.  I did also add a water meter on just the sprinkler feeds to get a better idea as to how much water I was using.  Probably would up the granularity once the water rate averages went over $300 per month for standard water usage (not sprinkler stuff) or just paint the grass green.
 
Over the years I have redone some of the landscaping (regrading some parts and adding berms in other parts; mostly  though related to water).  I have been very particular about timing of adding nutrients, watering and even length of kept grass and when it was cut (weekly or not during drought times).
 
One year I did have a lightning strike take out the two Rain8Nets being utilized.  But this is one time in 10 years and it did only damage the Rain8Nets and nothing else (rest of the hardware/sensors continued to work well - Digi stuff - 1 wire stuff).
 
I did update the 1-wire weather station to a Davis Vantage Vue.  I did also leave the Dallas tipping bucket in place and added a digital water sensor.  (measuring rain today with the Davis Weather station, Dallas Tipping bucket and two digital rain sensors).  One of the digital rain sensors is just sent to any rain and the other one is set to measure rain.  I still utilize the internet but mostly depend on my weather stuff to provide most accurate data.
 
We had a drought last summer and I was able to sparingly water the lawn while keeping it green and still keep my water bill under $300 for one month.  Many folks in our little subdivision just quit watering and let their grass go dorment during the drought.
 
Today though there is really no watching or handholding of the sprinkler system; I let it do its job and don't really pay much attention these days to it. 
 
It is most effective and efficient doing its job and these days running on a little Arm CPU still getting all of its analog data to calculate what and when it will water.
 
This is sort of a "plug" for mcsSprinklers software; mostly cuz it already has "all" of the little analog pieces or methodologies of connectivity to the software such that you can "experiment" with a variety of sensors and methdologies for watering your lawn.

 

[uh2]

I can already see this is going to suck up all my time and money.
 
I'm ok with that.