Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/643683
WINERY & VINEYARD EQUIPMENT March 2015 WINES&VINES 37 pressure bomb readings and collects weather information. "He's looking at all aspects of moisture in his vineyards to help him make decisions," Grant said. Chris Storm is the director of viticulture for Lodi, Calif.-based Vino Farms, which owns and manages more than 10,000 acres of vines throughout California. He said the firm is using capacitance sensors that provide continuous measurements at three different depths in the company's vineyards near Lodi. He said the units provide data that's helpful to see how fast soil moisture is getting depleted or when it's gone. The one drawback is that as the soil dries, the sensors can lose contact with the soil and deliver either no data at all or data that's unus- able. "That often happens in July, when soil moisture data is critical," he said. In the company's coastal vineyards, he said they have more than 400 Aquacheck capaci- tance probes that provide data about once per week. "It does provide some useful information, ACCLIMA Acclima reports its TDT sensor is the most accurate and stable on the market based on test data from the Center for Irrigation Technology. The unit takes readings from a 100ml sample area and remains stable de- spite changes in soil salinity or temperature or in the presence of fertilizer. Ac- clima also produces a SDI version of the sensor. acclima.com ESI ESI recently added a new in-ground moisture sensor equipped with Bluetooth for data re- cording and logging wirelessly to an iPhone or Android device. The sensor employs time domain transmissometry (TDT) technology, measures moisture at 15 cm segments and is available with one to eight segments. esica.com ADCON Adcon's SM1 probe features a 30 cm sen- sor board with a moisture sensor every 10 cm and a temperature sensor. The supplier can link multiple probes together to pro- vide a range of 30 cm to 150 cm in length. The SMI is SDI-12 compatible, and its low power requirements allow multiple SMI to be connected to the same terminal. adcon.com AQUACHECK AquaCheck's sub-surface probe offers sen- sors at six different depths per probe. The device is available with SDI-12 or MODBUS and can be read with an external logger or remote transmission. The company also pro- duces a wireless probe with a battery and memory for storing data. Moisture informa- tion can be read with an external logger or an adjacent remote transmission unit. aquachecktech.com SPECTRUM TECHNOLOGIES Spectrum Technologies produces the TDR 100 meter for quick readings and SM 100 moisture sensors de- signed to be buried at multiple depths for col- lecting irrigation data. specmeters.com