Steps toward an integrated soil water tension and osmotic tension sensor

Abstract

The two most important abiotic plant stressors that impact plant development and crop yields are water stress and salinity stress. These issues are particularly important in arid and semi‐arid regions. According to a 2019 research paper, “thirty crop species provide 90% of our food, most of which display severe yield losses under moderate salinity.” Moderate salinity is defined as extracted pore‐water salinity in the range of 4–8 dS m−1. Currently, commercially available soil moisture and bulk soil electrical conductivity sensors can estimate in situ soil pore‐water electrical conductivity with suitably calibrated soil moisture and electrical conductivity models for a wide range of soil types and growing media. With knowledge of the pore‐water electrical conductivity it is possible to estimate osmotic tension. Furthermore, there are commercially available dielectric tensiometers that provide soil water tension measurements from the water content of a porous matrix component that is in equilibrium with the water capillary forces in the surrounding soil or growing media. Combining soil moisture and soil water tension measurements enables water retention curves and the hydraulic properties of a soil to be determined. However, the overall ability of a plant to extract water from a soil or substrate is typically dominated by water tension and osmotic tension. Currently, while the technology blocks exist in different commercial offerings, the combination of a water tension and osmotic tension in an integrated sensor does not exist. A key benefit of the porous matrix in a dielectric tensiometer is that electrical measurements include a component of extracted water from the soil or growing media. With the appropriate dielectric characterization of the porous matrix, there should be no need for soil‐specific calibrations. The aim of the paper is to outline the measurement processing that could be implemented into an integrated water tension and osmotic tension sensor.