Measuring Soil Water Potential to Maximize Farm Water Use

Deciding when to irrigate can feel like half art, half science. Visual inspections, weather reports, and soil moisture can give you a pretty good idea when your crop needs more water, but soil water potential could help you make even better use of your valuable water. Soil water potential is, in short, the amount of energy it takes for plants to pull water out of the soil, and it's the real limiting factor for how much water in the soil your crops can use.

Listen in as Leo Rivera, research scientist and Director of Outreach at METER Group, describes how measuring soil water potential can help you make the best use of your limited water resources.

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