Soil Moisture and Irrigation Water Infiltration

The fact that soil has moisture has various advantages and disadvantages and in this article, we will discuss each one of them incompletely and in full depth. The interesting fact is that even the moisture content of the soil can be measured in terms of weight. There are many methods by which the water from soil can be removed and those are evaporation, transpiration, and runoff. Runoff means creating a slope steep enough for the water to flow easily. 

Advantages of Soil Moisture 

There are many advantages to having a moisture content in the soil and some of those advantages are that it makes the soil ever ready for the process of photosynthesis along with the sunlight and water that is required as if the rainfall is not adequate for water to fall, the content of moisture in the soil helps it easily. The presence of moisture in the soil helps with the plant position or the turgidity as for the plant to be in upright condition, it is required to have an adequate amount of water in its roots to fulfill the requirement. 

The most important use of moisture in the soil is the fact that it helps to determine what kind of soil it is as we know that some types are just rich in water and some of them have scarcity of water. It is true that sometimes the conditions in which the plant is growing also helps with the type of plant. The protoplasm of the plant is also determined from the type of plant as around ninety percent of it is constituted by water. 

The moisture content in the soil acts as a solvent to help the flow of water so the plant can have water whenever it needs it and does not have to die because of it. 

Disadvantages of Soil Moisture 

It is a fact that if a thing has so many specific advantages that have the potential to keep the plant alive then it will also have a lot of dangerous disadvantages. Some of those are the conditions in which the plants grow and there is nothing that we can do about it as if it grows in a desert, it is easy to say that the plant will have water scarcity and it will die eventually.  Another major disadvantage is the fact that the moisture content in the is something that has to be kept a record of every single time an experiment is conducted. 

Soil Moisture Sensor 

This is one of those machines that is used by gardeners often. This machine is often used if we want to quantify the amount of moisture in terms of volume. This machine was made when the original measurement technique was a tough process to carry out every single time and a modern and effective approach had to be made. 

Now the original soil moisture sensor technique required the answers to various things like the gravity constant, drying, weighing, and removing the sample taken in the experimentation of the plant whereas the new soil moisture sensor technique just needs the answers to the constants like electric resistance and dielectric constant which is pretty much the same for all of the plants. Hence, this technique replaced the older one very easily. 

Irrigation water infiltration

Under this heading, we will be learning about infiltration intensely. So basically, infiltration is the method by which the soil seeps into the water through the ground. One very basic factor that affects this is the amount of water that is in the sand on which the plant is grown as liquidity is easier for the plant to go through than solidity. 

The maximum rate at which the soil can help the water to go is also called the capacity of the soil. Now it is common sense to know about the fact that the more layer the soil has in the ground, the less is the capacity of the soil as it will have to seep through all those layers before it can reach the plant. Now sometimes due to a lot of soil layers, there is a delay in the water reaching the soil and the plant can die as well. 

Uses of infiltration 

There are a lot of uses for infiltration but the main use of infiltration is that it helps farmers to know what type of irrigation techniques they should use after seeing the amount of moisture the plant has as if the land is not irrigated properly it can certainly lead to the death of the plant. 

Conclusion 

Moisture in the soil is one of the most important things for the plant and it has the potential to even let it die. So we have to make sure through all our experiments that the plant gets the required nutrition and the moisture that they are supposed to have.