Aquaflex is a proven product and has been successfully installed (in varying applications/environments) all over the world for the last 20 years. Aquaflex is proudly manufactured in New Zealand by OnFarm Data; a mature company with proven products. Aquaflex continues to be sought after because of the accurate measurements it makes and the detailed reporting. It is a crucial tool used by growers when scheduling irrigation and allows savings to be made in water, energy use and nutrient retention. We have strict quality control procedures to ensure our products perform at their best.
FAQs
What is Aquaflex ?
Aquaflex is a system for measuring soil moisture and temperature.
The Aquaflex soil moisture sensor is a 3m (10ft) long flexible sensor that measures the soil temperature at the body of the sensor and the average soil moisture along its length.
An Aquaflex soil moisture sensor is buried in the soil and has been designed to be compatible with a number of recording devices.
How Long is The Sensor?
The Aquaflex soil moisture sensor is 3m (10ft) long.
Aquaflex provides spatial averaging over this 3m (10ft) length and measures 6 litres (370 cubic inches) of soil resulting in reliable and repeatable results.
Why is Spatial Averaging Important?
One of the biggest problems with most soil moisture sensors or monitoring devices is that they measure moisture in a very localised area.
This is a problem because soil in inherently highly variable – both in texture and soil moisture. Many factors affect the uniformity of soil moisture, including the uniformity of irrigation and rainfall, crop root distribution, microclimate and soil properties.
Averaging soil moisture measurement across a broader area provides a better indication of general trends in local soil moisture.
How Do You Use The Aquaflex System?
Firstly, you bury one or more Aquaflex soil moisture sensors in the soil. Measurements will start once the sensor is installed, however time will allow you to see the trends in your data, particularly after rainfall or irrigation events.
How you access your data will depend on what system you choose, however data can be viewed on a computer, mobile phone or tablet.
Target moisture set points (field capacity and refill points) can be added to the trend displays. Data will be continuously monitored and recorded and will asssit you in making key irrigation decisions.
Why is Continuous Monitoring Important?
In most soils and growing conditions, soil moisture and temperature vary dramatically, often over quite short periods of time.
Continuous monitoring provides the full picture that shows just how widely and quickly these changes are taking place and allows rainfall and irrigation events can be observed in real time.
How Does Aquaflex Measure Soil Moisture?
Aquaflex uses a unique technology to measure the dielectric constant of the soil. Since the soil dielectric is a moisture-dependent property, these measurements can be converted to accurate measurements of volumetric soil moisture (the amount of water in a given volume of soil).
Aquaflex uses signal processes which are similar – but superior – to time-domain reflectrometry (TDR). Special processes have been developed that allow TDR-like measurements over a longer conductor and improve the correction of these values for soil temperature and salinity.
How Accurate is the Aquaflex Soil Moisture Sensor?
For agricultural soils measurements are normally accurate within two percent volumetric moisture, with a measurement repeatability of about 0.25 percent volumetric moisture, using standard calibrations. Soil specific local calibrations are easily made using the built in feature in the Aquaflex software.
Soil temperature measurements are accurate to within 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius).
What is the Moisture Range of the Sensor?
Aquaflex precisely measures soil moisture levels from dry to saturation.
How Do You Install The Sensors?
A trench is dug large enough for the Aquaflex soil moisture sensor, placing the soil on a polythene sheet or similar in the same order that it was removed in.
Place the Aquaflex sensor on its edge at the desired depth and replace the soil in the same order that it was removed and as near as possible to the same density of the undisturbed soil.
Any stones that were removed should be replaced into the trench, although care needs to be taken not to place them directly on or beside the sensor.
For specific instructions and guidance please contact us at Aquaflex as correct installation is crucial to gaining informative and representative data.
How Do You Get Data Out of the Logging Sensor?
Data can be retrieved from the Aquaflex Logging Sensor in a number of ways:
- By manual download (via Bluetooth) to your Smartphone or Tablet from the Aquaflex Smart Hub
- Using the Aquacom telemetry system for automatic data retrieval (New Zealand only)
- Using you preferred or current telemetry provider for automatic data retrieval
- Cellular transmisson of data which you can view on our website
How Big is the Aquaflex Sensor?
The Aquaflex Sensor is a 3m long tape, 3mm thick and 28mm high.
The Electronics Block at one end of the Sensor is 135mm long by 75mm high and 30mm deep.
Standard data cable lengths are 3m, 10m and 20m.
How is Aquaflex Powered?
Depending on the configuration Aquaflex is usually solar powered with a back up battery.
How Long Can the Aquaflex Smart Hub Store Data?
The data capacity depends on the frequency of measurements (sampling interval). When taking a reading every hour it can store data for up to 340 days.
What Does Aquaflex Cost?
Pricing depends on number of sensors, cable lengths and data transmission option. Please contact us to discuss further.
How Does the Aquaflex Sensor Compensate for Temperature?
The sensor electronics (buried under the ground with the sensor cable) includes a device which measures the soil temperature.
This temperature measurement is used to compensate the moisture measurement for differences in both the electronics and the soil itself at different temperatures.
How Does the Aquaflex Sensor Compensate for Soil Conductivity?
Aquaflex determines moisture by measuring the time taken for a pulse to travel along its sensor cable.
It is well established (and backed up by our own careful measurements) that increasing the conductivity of the soil has two independent effects. Firstly, it will alter the speed of the pulse along the sensor cable (this in itself will introduce an error into the moisture measurement). Also, the shape of the returned pulse will be altered in a known fashion.
The Aquaflex sensor makes a measurement of the shape of the returned pulse and uses this to compensate the moisture measurement against errors caused by changes in soil conductivity.
