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Infiltration Map FAQ

What is the Infiltration Map, and how can I use it?

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Written by Benjamin Smith
Updated over a month ago

  • What am I looking at?

    • The Infiltration Map is a novel way to look at soil moisture. It uses the same data that is used in the Soil Moisture (AWC) chart, but presents it in a different way.
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      Colors are very important in the Infiltration Map. The colors in the Infiltration Map correlate to the colored bands in the AWC chart. Blue means the soil is too wet, Green is perfect moisture, Yellow represents a deficit of water, red is a severe deficit in water.
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      Instead of showing an average or individual soil depths on one chart, the Infiltration Map presents the sensor data as a cross section of the soil over time. The top of the map is the shallow-most sensor and the bottom is the deepest sensor.
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      As irrigation occurs the uppermost rows will turn green and then blue as it fills with water and then will move downward as the water infiltrates into the soil. Because of this, it is possible to see how effective irrigation events are by seeing how deep into the profile the water moves.

  • What are the blue icicles I see?

    • The blue icicles are irrigation events and represent how far into the profile the water infiltrated.

  • What does it mean when the deep layers stay blue?

    • Blue represents wet soil. If the deep depths stay blue it should indicate that there is an excessive amount of water there such as a water table. Often deeper depths stay wet because there are few roots and very little water is pulled from that deep into the profile.

  • Why do the middle depths turn yellow, but not the deeper depths?

    • The most active roots and the greatest density of roots in the soil are enough under the soil to be less affected by rapid drying, but not so deep as to require a large investment in carbohydrates to grow roots deep into the soil. Those areas are drying the fastest are the areas where the roots are the most active. In this way, you can track where your rootzone is active and adjust irrigation events to target those areas and not waste water by irrigating deeper than that.

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