IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/agiwat/v320y2025ics037837742500575x.html

Optimizing soil water sensor placement and irrigation thresholds for winter wheat: A data-driven approach to efficient water management

Author

Listed:
  • Feng, Xudong
  • Yan, Zongzheng
  • Liu, Na
  • Liu, Qingshan
  • Shao, Liwei
  • Liu, Xiuwei

Abstract

Soil moisture monitoring plays an important role in precision irrigation in modern agriculture. While wireless soil moisture sensors (SMSs) have revolutionized data collection for irrigation decision-making, critical knowledge gaps exist regarding optimal sensor placement strategies and dynamic threshold determination, particularly for deep-rooted crops like winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). This four-year experimental study (2018–2022) systematically investigated sensor placement optimization through multi-depth (10–200 cm) soil moisture monitoring under six water supply regimes. Subsequent validation trials (2022–2024) evaluated the proposed threshold values in balancing yield and water productivity. The results showed that shallow soil moisture (≤20 cm depth) exhibited significant variability and was not suitable to be used for irrigation decision. The threshold values for highest yield and highest water productivity were not the same, with the former being higher than the latter. The values in using relative soil water contents (soil water contents/field capacity, RSW) and fraction of available soil water (FASW) were 55 % and 32 %, respectively, at 30 cm for highest WP; and they were 60 % and 45 %, respectively, for highest yield. The threshold values were also depth-dependent. Down to 60 cm, the values were changing to 65 % and 50 % for highest WP, and 70 % and 60 % for highest yield, respectively. Soil moisture in deep soil layers (>90 cm) could indicate the crop water status after anthesis. Implementation of depth-specific thresholds reduced irrigation inputs by 18–23 % in wet seasons (p < 0.05) while maintaining yield stability and enhanced water productivity. Therefore, it was recommended that the depths of the sensor placement should be considered in deciding the threshold values for irrigation management for a deep-rooted crop. The threshold values for maximizing yield and water productivity should be separately decided.

Suggested Citation

  • Feng, Xudong & Yan, Zongzheng & Liu, Na & Liu, Qingshan & Shao, Liwei & Liu, Xiuwei, 2025. "Optimizing soil water sensor placement and irrigation thresholds for winter wheat: A data-driven approach to efficient water management," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:320:y:2025:i:c:s037837742500575x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109861
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037837742500575X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.agwat.2025.109861?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Migliaccio, Kati W. & Schaffer, Bruce & Crane, Jonathan H. & Davies, Frederick S., 2010. "Plant response to evapotranspiration and soil water sensor irrigation scheduling methods for papaya production in south Florida," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 97(10), pages 1452-1460, October.
    2. Li, Haotian & Li, Lu & Liu, Na & Chen, Suying & Shao, Liwei & Sekiya, Nobuhito & Zhang, Xiying, 2022. "Root efficiency and water use regulation relating to rooting depth of winter wheat," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    3. Pereira, Luis S. & Cordery, Ian & Iacovides, Iacovos, 2012. "Improved indicators of water use performance and productivity for sustainable water conservation and saving," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 39-51.
    4. Datta, Sumon & Taghvaeian, Saleh, 2023. "Soil water sensors for irrigation scheduling in the United States: A systematic review of literature," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 278(C).
    5. Bwambale, Erion & Abagale, Felix K. & Anornu, Geophrey K., 2022. "Smart irrigation monitoring and control strategies for improving water use efficiency in precision agriculture: A review," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    6. El-Naggar, A.G. & Hedley, C.B. & Horne, D. & Roudier, P. & Clothier, B.E., 2020. "Soil sensing technology improves application of irrigation water," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    7. Liang, Xi & Liakos, Vasilis & Wendroth, Ole & Vellidis, George, 2016. "Scheduling irrigation using an approach based on the van Genuchten model," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 170-179.
    8. Fernández, J.E. & Alcon, F. & Diaz-Espejo, A. & Hernandez-Santana, V. & Cuevas, M.V., 2020. "Water use indicators and economic analysis for on-farm irrigation decision: A case study of a super high density olive tree orchard," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 237(C).
    9. Zhang, Xiying & Qin, Wenli & Chen, Suying & Shao, Liwei & Sun, Hongyong, 2017. "Responses of yield and WUE of winter wheat to water stress during the past three decades—A case study in the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 47-54.
    10. Srinivasan, M.S. & Measures, Richard & Muller, Carla & Neal, Mark & Rajanayaka, Channa & Shankar, Ude & Elley, Graham, 2021. "Comparing the water use metrics of just-in-case, just-in-time and justified irrigation strategies using a scenario-based tool," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    11. Zhang, Xiaoyu & Zhang, Xiying & Liu, Xiuwei & Shao, Liwei & Sun, Hongyong & Chen, Suying, 2015. "Incorporating root distribution factor to evaluate soil water status for winter wheat," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 32-41.
    12. Li, Haotian & Liu, Na & Shao, Liwei & Liu, Xiuwei & Sun, Hongyong & Chen, Suying & Zhang, Xiying, 2025. "Changes in root growth and water uptake contribute to the yield and water productivity improvement in winter wheat during the past three decades: A case study in the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    13. França, Ana Carolina Ferreira & Coelho, Rubens Duarte & da Silva Gundim, Alice & de Oliveira Costa, Jéfferson & Quiloango-Chimarro, Carlos Alberto, 2024. "Effects of different irrigation scheduling methods on physiology, yield, and irrigation water productivity of soybean varieties," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    14. You, Yongliang & Song, Ping & Yang, Xianlong & Zheng, Yapeng & Dong, Li & Chen, Jing, 2022. "Optimizing irrigation for winter wheat to maximize yield and maintain high-efficient water use in a semi-arid environment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    15. Barker, J. Burdette & Franz, Trenton E. & Heeren, Derek M. & Neale, Christopher M.U. & Luck, Joe D., 2017. "Soil water content monitoring for irrigation management: A geostatistical analysis," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 36-49.
    16. Soulis, Konstantinos X. & Elmaloglou, Stamatios & Dercas, Nicholas, 2015. "Investigating the effects of soil moisture sensors positioning and accuracy on soil moisture based drip irrigation scheduling systems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 258-268.
    17. Feng, Xudong & Bi, Shaojie & Li, Hongjun & Qi, Yongqing & Chen, Suying & Shao, Liwei, 2024. "Soil moisture forecasting for precision irrigation management using real-time electricity consumption records," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 291(C).
    18. Kang, Shaozhong & Hao, Xinmei & Du, Taisheng & Tong, Ling & Su, Xiaoling & Lu, Hongna & Li, Xiaolin & Huo, Zailin & Li, Sien & Ding, Risheng, 2017. "Improving agricultural water productivity to ensure food security in China under changing environment: From research to practice," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 5-17.
    19. Gu, Huijie & Wang, Yanzhe & Peruzzo, Luca & Li, Baoru & Lu, Yang & Liu, Xiuwei, 2025. "Linking winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L) root traits and root water uptake with electrical resistivity tomography," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sun, Xuguang & Zhang, Baoyuan & Dai, Menglei & Jing, Cuijiao & Ma, Kai & Tang, Boyi & Li, Kejiang & Dang, Hongkai & Gu, Limin & Zhen, Wenchao & Gu, Xiaohe, 2024. "Accurate irrigation decision-making of winter wheat at the filling stage based on UAV hyperspectral inversion of leaf water content," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 306(C).
    2. Xue, Run & Jiang, Yue & Li, Hong & Shi, Bin, 2025. "Review of advancements and challenges in delayed irrigation: Enhancing crop water productivity and sustainable crop production," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 318(C).
    3. Lu, Junsheng & Geng, Chenming & Cui, Xiaolu & Li, Mengyue & Chen, Shuaihong & Hu, Tiantian, 2021. "Response of drip fertigated wheat-maize rotation system on grain yield, water productivity and economic benefits using different water and nitrogen amounts," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    4. Tomaz, Alexandra & Palma, José Ferro & Ramos, Tiago & Costa, Maria Natividade & Rosa, Elizabete & Santos, Marta & Boteta, Luís & Dôres, José & Patanita, Manuel, 2021. "Yield, technological quality and water footprints of wheat under Mediterranean climate conditions: A field experiment to evaluate the effects of irrigation and nitrogen fertilization strategies," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    5. Lu, Junsheng & Xiang, Youzhen & Fan, Junliang & Zhang, Fucang & Hu, Tiantian, 2021. "Sustainable high grain yield, nitrogen use efficiency and water productivity can be achieved in wheat-maize rotation system by changing irrigation and fertilization strategy," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    6. Li, Haotian & Liu, Na & Shao, Liwei & Liu, Xiuwei & Sun, Hongyong & Chen, Suying & Zhang, Xiying, 2025. "Changes in root growth and water uptake contribute to the yield and water productivity improvement in winter wheat during the past three decades: A case study in the North China Plain," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    7. Wang, Qunyan & Jia, Yifan & Pang, Zhongjun & Zhou, Jianbin & Scriber, Kevin Emmanuel & Liang, Bin & Chen, Zhujun, 2024. "Intelligent fertigation improves tomato yield and quality and water and nutrient use efficiency in solar greenhouse production," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    8. Wei, Shiyu & Kuang, Naikun & Jiao, Fengli & Zong, Rui & Li, Quanqi, 2023. "Exploring the effects of subsoiling tillage under various irrigation regimes on the evapotranspiration and crop water productivity of winter wheat using RZWQM2," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    9. Pereira, L.S. & Paredes, P. & Jovanovic, N., 2020. "Soil water balance models for determining crop water and irrigation requirements and irrigation scheduling focusing on the FAO56 method and the dual Kc approach," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    10. Ren, Dongyang & Xu, Xu & Engel, Bernard & Huang, Quanzhong & Xiong, Yunwu & Huo, Zailin & Huang, Guanhua, 2021. "A comprehensive analysis of water productivity in natural vegetation and various crops coexistent agro-ecosystems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 243(C).
    11. Cameira, Maria do Rosário & Rodrigo, Isabel & Garção, Andreia & Neves, Manuela & Ferreira, Antónia & Paredes, Paula, 2024. "Linking participatory approach and rapid appraisal methods to select potential innovations in collective irrigation systems," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 299(C).
    12. Darouich, Hanaa & Karfoul, Razan & Ramos, Tiago B. & Moustafa, Ali & Shaheen, Baraa & Pereira, Luis S., 2021. "Crop water requirements and crop coefficients for jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius L.) using the SIMDualKc model and assessing irrigation strategies for the Syrian Akkar region," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    13. Jovanovic, N. & Pereira, L.S. & Paredes, P. & Pôças, I. & Cantore, V. & Todorovic, M., 2020. "A review of strategies, methods and technologies to reduce non-beneficial consumptive water use on farms considering the FAO56 methods," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    14. Martínez-Gimeno, M.A. & Zahaf, A. & Badal, E. & Paz, S. & Bonet, L. & Pérez-Pérez, J.G., 2022. "Effect of progressive irrigation water reductions on super-high-density olive orchards according to different scarcity scenarios," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 262(C).
    15. Mansour, Elsayed & Desoky, El-Sayed M. & Ali, Mohamed M.A. & Abdul-Hamid, Mohamed I. & Ullah, Hayat & Attia, Ahmed & Datta, Avishek, 2021. "Identifying drought-tolerant genotypes of faba bean and their agro-physiological responses to different water regimes in an arid Mediterranean environment," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).
    16. França, Ana Carolina Ferreira & Coelho, Rubens Duarte & da Silva Gundim, Alice & de Oliveira Costa, Jéfferson & Quiloango-Chimarro, Carlos Alberto, 2024. "Effects of different irrigation scheduling methods on physiology, yield, and irrigation water productivity of soybean varieties," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    17. Quiloango-Chimarro, Carlos Alberto & Coelho, Rubens Duarte & Gundim, Alice da Silva & Costa, Jéfferson de Oliveira & da Rocha, Tainá Ferreira & Heinemann, Alexandre Bryan, 2025. "Irrigation strategies for upland rice cultivars in Brazil: Physiological responses and agronomic performance," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 321(C).
    18. Li, Xiaojin & Yang, Yonghui & Zhou, Xinyao & Liu, Linlin & Yang, Yanmin & Han, Shumin & Zhang, Yinsheng, 2024. "Impact of water productivity and irrigated area expansion on irrigation water consumption and food production in China in last four decades," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    19. Bao, Xiaoyuan & Zhang, Baoyuan & Dai, Menglei & Liu, Xuejing & Ren, Jianhong & Gu, Limin & Zhen, Wenchao, 2024. "Improvement of grain weight and crop water productivity in winter wheat by light and frequent irrigation based on crop evapotranspiration," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 301(C).
    20. Zhang, Ting & Zuo, Qiang & Ma, Ning & Shi, Jianchu & Fan, Yuchuan & Wu, Xun & Wang, Lichun & Xue, Xuzhang & Ben-Gal, Alon, 2023. "Optimizing relative root-zone water depletion thresholds to maximize yield and water productivity of winter wheat using AquaCrop," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:agiwat:v:320:y:2025:i:c:s037837742500575x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/agwat .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.