Managing Irrigations in Sandy Soils Using Soil Water Data From a Capacitance Probe.

Water management districts are tightening regulations on agricultural water use because of recent deficit rainfall and greater demand from urban population growth.  Florida ridge soils are commonly >95% sand and plant available water barely exceeds 0.08 m³ m^-3.  Managing irrigation in these sandy soils is difficult because of the very low water holding capacity.  The goal of this study is to show soil water data obtained from Decagon Devices EC-5 capacitance soil probes.  Information on effective irrigation management using probes in these sandy soils will be presented.