Soil Sensors Kenya Soil temperature sensor
Every NuaSense soil sensor reads soil temperature at its depth about every 10 minutes, next to soil moisture: the pair that decides when seed comes up and how the root zone behaves.
The reading
Each NuaSense soil sensor reads soil temperature and soil moisture at the depth where you install it, and sends both about every 10 minutes. With two sensors on one node box you see the shallow and the deeper soil side by side.
Your weather station records the air temperature at the same time. On the dashboard the two lines sit next to each other, and the gap between them shows how much mulch, crop cover and irrigation buffer the root zone against the heat of the day.
In the field
Planting rules written for colder countries wait for the soil to warm up. In most of Kenya it is moisture rather than cold that holds germination back, so read the two together at seed depth: soil temperature and germination.
Bare soil heats up and cools down faster than soil under mulch or a closed crop. A shallow sensor shows how large those swings are on your own block, and what the mulch changes.
Whether the nitrogen you pay for reaches the roots depends on what the soil is doing, warm or cold, wet or dry, before you apply it: what happens in the soil before topdressing.
Prices
There is no separate temperature sensor to buy: soil temperature comes with every NuaSense soil sensor, at every depth you install.
| What you buy | What it reads | Price, excl. taxes |
|---|---|---|
| Soil sensor, one depth | Soil moisture and soil temperature | KES 7,000 |
| Soil sensor, two depths | Two moisture and two temperature channels, a shallow and a deeper reading | KES 9,000 |
| Soil sensor with EC | Adds electrical conductivity, the salt load of the soil water | KES 10,000 |
| NuaSense weather station Required | Rain, wind, air temperature, humidity, air pressure and sunlight. It also brings the soil sensors online. | KES 30,000 |
Running costs: Safaricom data at cost, typically about one US dollar per station per month (none on Wi-Fi); the dashboard is included with five direct downloads a day; SMS and WhatsApp alerts cost 0.03 US dollars per message. You pay one month after the station is installed and transmitting, with 100 percent money back within the first three months. All prices and terms.
Questions
No. Every NuaSense soil sensor reads soil temperature and soil moisture at its depth. With two sensors on one node box you get the temperature at a shallow and a deeper depth.
It shows soil temperature and moisture at the depth you choose, recorded about every 10 minutes, so you can see when the seedbed is warm and moist enough. NuaSense does not forecast the weather, so the reading tells you what the soil is doing now, not what it will do.
For planting decisions, close to seed depth; for the crop, where most of its roots are. The depth is chosen per installation, and the node box takes more sensors if you want more depths.
Tell us your crop and what you want to time, planting or irrigation. We reply with the depths we would read and the price.