In response to the global need to regulate water consumption in agriculture, researchers from the University of Connecticut engineered a soil moisture sensor.
According to the Tech Xplore website, the new sensors are more affordable than the currently used ones, small enough to insert into the soil with ease and less expensive to manufacture than current technology.
Guiling Wang, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UConn, said: "Advances in hydrological science are hampered by the lack of on-site soil moisture data. It's really hard to monitor and measure things underground.”
“The challenge is that the existing sensors are very expensive and the installation process is very labor intensive.”
According to the research team, the sensors are expected to save nearly 35 percent of water consumption, reported the German news agency.
Current sensors that are used in a similar way range from $100 to $1,000 each, while the one developed at UConn costs $2, according to the researchers.
