Instruction Manual

Installing Soil Moisture & Temperature Sensors Page 13
Mounting the Sensor on a Pipe
To mount the sensor on a pipe, stake,
or pole with outside diameter between
1" and 1-1/4" (25 mm and 31 mm),
secure the sensor to the pipe using the
1-1/2" U-bolts, 1/4" flat washers, and
1/4" hex nuts as shown below. Use a
7/16" wrench or adjustable wrench to
tighten the hex nuts.
Installing Soil Moisture & Temperature Sensors
The soil acts as a reservoir to store water between irrigation or rainfall events,
so that it is available to the crop or plants as needed for healthy growth. The
purpose of using sensors to measure the soil water is to give you a better
understanding of how fast water is being depleted in the different areas of your
field or lawn, so you can better schedule your irrigations and correctly evaluate
the true effectiveness of any rainfall. By monitoring the soil moisture between
irrigations, you will gain a more accurate picture of this process over time, and
develop an irrigation scheduling pattern to meet your crop’s “need” for water.
This minimizes the guesswork, resulting in water savings, lower pumping
costs, and the elimination of excess leaching of nitrogen due to over irrigation.
While not absolutely necessary for operation, we recommend that a
temperature probe be installed with each soil moisture sensor. This allows the
soil moisture sensor’s readings to be temperature compensated for better
accuracy.
Note: WATERMARK Soil Moisture Sensor information based on material supplied by
Irrometer Company, Inc.
Connecting Soil Moisture and Temperature Sensors
1. Run the sensor cables up through the grommets on the bottom of the station
housing.
2. Connect the temperature probes to the TEMP connectors.
3. Connect soil moisture probes to the SOIL connectors
Mounting on a Pipe