Description
Andy Humphrey kicks off the episode with "Little Silver Ring" by The Samples and shares insights from his trip to Orlando for volleyball Nationals, highlighting its economic impact. He then revisits a past episode on field capacity, discussing soil moisture sensors, practical analogies, and their importance in irrigation systems.
(0:00) Andy Humphrey introduces the morning song of the day
(1:31) Andy Humphrey reveals the song: "little silver ring" by The Samples
(1:44) Podcast introduction and target audience
(2:20) Andy Humphrey talks about being in Orlando for volleyball Nationals
(3:47) Discussion on the economic impact of the volleyball tournament
(7:36) Transition back to the Sprinkler Nerd Show
(8:15) Replaying a past episode titled "field capacity, my ass"
(9:40) Experiment with multiple soil moisture sensors
(12:21) Shout out to Juanita and replay of the April 2023 episode
(12:58) Defining field capacity
(14:23) Using a sponge as an analogy for field capacity
(17:09) Comparing field capacity to a percolation test
(19:16) Field capacity as the baseline for soil moisture
(22:10) Explanation of how to measure and apply field capacity
(27:20) The art of setting soil moisture sensors
(32:40) Analogies for understanding tank size and soil moisture
(33:14) Importance of field capacity in irrigation systems
(34:16) The future impact of soil sensors in the industry
(35:15) Closing remarks and wrap-up
And so I'm gonna play that for you today. Here because I don't have time to record a full episode with brand new content, but it did get me thinking about just soil moisture sensing and field capacity and understanding the numbers, and you're gonna hear all that on this episode, this replay episode. But I wanted to share a new concept that actually it's not completely new, but a concept that I have running, in ex in an experiment right now. And that is a concept of taking multiple soil moisture sensors, let's say, within one zone, and averaging them together to creating new soil moisture or that you might think of as a synthetic value. So there's always the angel question of, you know, how is this one spot where the soil moisture sensor is buried.
How how is that relative to the rest of either the site or the zone I'm not gonna get into all of those details. We'll save this for another episode. And and the and that is that is a valid question. And the only real way around causing a mistake is to actually just locate the sensor in in a really good area. But then what would happen?
What would it look like if instead of putting one soil moisture sensor in a zone? Or one soil moisture sensor in every zone, we put 3 soil moisture sensors in one zone and use that one zone as the baseline zone for the rest of the site. And it's not actually possible today to do this with any control system. Even a baseline control system. You cannot install you can install 3 soil moisture sensors in a zone, but they're all going to be independent, and only one of them can actually control the zone.
But what if you could take those 3 soil moisture sensors buried in the one zone, average them together to create a new synthetic, you know, synthetic value and use that average value to control the zone. What would that look like? That can't be done today, but I'm doing it. I'm actually I'm actually running this experiment. We have a a project that has I should know this number off the top of my head, but I don't.
Let's say if it has 8, it has 8 soil moisture sensors. And each soil moisture sensor is actually buried in in its own zone, 8 slow moisture sensors, 8 zones, but then I'm taking all of those 8 slow moisture sensors averaging them together and creating a new value that says here's the average soil moisture across the entire site. And what's interesting about that is, well, first, it it hasn't been done before. But second, it might make up for potential errors in location, f
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Embrace an Open Mindset: Keeping an open mind is crucial for discovering new opportunities and innovations. Importance of New Conversations: Engaging with new people and ideas can lead to significant breakthroughs. Technology and Innovation: Encountering...
Published 06/14/24
Hey, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Sprinkler Nerd Show. I'm your host, Andy Humphrey. This is episode X Y Z, because I honestly can't remember. Coming to you from my truck.
We could call this an episode of truck talk, which I did, more towards the beginning of this show, not...
Published 06/07/24