African Journal of Agricultural Research Vol. 2(11), pp. 565-568, November, 2007

ISSN 1991- 637X­© 2007 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Remote real-time monitoring soil water potential system based on GSM

Yongming Zhao, Xin Lu* and Haijiang Wang

Key Laboratory of Oasis Ecology Agriculture of Xinjiang Bingtuan, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832003, China.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: zhaoym99@yahoo.cn

Accepted 23 October, 2007

Aiming at the limitation of traditional measuring soil water potential, the paper presents an information system based GSM to real-time monitor data coming from multiple data sources. The monitoring system, which consisted of monitoring center, GSM transmission channel and data detection terminal, was given. The detection terminal included the measuring station and TS-2 negative pressure meter, which was applied to measure soil water potential. Nowadays the system has been successfully applied to drip irrigation in the cotton field on farm in Xinjiang region. The system provides a feasible technology frame-work for collecting and processing wide geographical distribution data in farmland.

Key words: Soil water potential, real-time monitoring, negative pressure meter.