Soil Sensors Kenya

Field Notes

Soil data from Kenyan fields, read and interpreted. No second-hand advice.

Horizontal bar divided into four zones: water locked below wilting point, a stress zone, the readily available water band, and water above field capacity that drains away under gravity.
Reading the data

A soil moisture reading means nothing until you know three other numbers

Two farms outside Naivasha can see the same figure on the same dashboard on the same morning. One should irrigate today. The other should wait four days. Neither of them is misreading the sensor.

10 August 2026 · 7 min
Bar chart of Kenyan ET0 monthly range: Voi peak (March) at 175.3 mm, Voi low (November) at 148.3 mm, Kitale peak (March) at 157.1 mm, Kitale low (June) at 121.5 mm. The range across the group is 121.5 to 175.3 mm.
Irrigation Scheduling

Turning Evapotranspiration into Irrigation Depth: What the Crop Lost Yesterday

The standard formula is ETc = ET0 x Kc. The catch is the coefficient: published reviews put the initial-stage value as much as 200 percent away from what a local calibration gives, and nobody has run that check on your block. Here is how to close the gap yourself.

10 August 2026 · 7 min