• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.85-94
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• 1998

Due to relatively high permittivity of water in soils, we placed the soil condenser into soils to measure the soil moisture content. The soil condenser was made with two insulated iron sticks. The capacitance of the soil condenser was determined by the pulse period from RC type oscillation circuit and the highest voltage output accepting 10MHz pulse. After zero point adjustment, the measured relative capacitance percentage (RCS) to the standard condenser obtained by the oscillation circuit almost linearly correlated with the end depth of the sensor submerged in water. The RC type oscillation was disturbed by many sensor installed in a close distance in one place, presumably resulting in that the sensor sticks played as a interfering antennas generating or accepting electron waves from them. The temperature dependance of the output from the sensors could be corrected through experimentally determined revision function. Although lineal correlation was found between soil moisture and RCS, users should derive their own correlation function for every sensor to measure soil moisture, because the outputs were influenced by the installation depth and layout in the soil. The voltage type sensor responded inversely with soil moisture content and so was not suitable to the accurate measurement of soil moisture, but allows high economic benefit in various application such as simplified measurement of soil moisture and irrigation line control because of its low component count. The voltage type moisture sensor could be reinforced by relay controlling circuit to open and to close the solenoid valves respectively at optimal limits of the least and the most soil moisture according to user's adjustment.