Innovations

Apparatus for measuring and monitoring of moisture, water potential, salinity and temperature, based on TDR technology, developed by the staff of the Institute of Agrophysics Polish Academy of Sciences and produced for several years in Institute, is used in many academic institutions in many countries. Moisture and salinity of porous materials by means of the Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) is determined by measuring the propagation time of electromagnetic pulse in the studied medium. This apparatus allows one to study also the dynamics of the determined parameters in the laboratory or field condition. This is due to application of ion-selective electrodes, developed in collaboration with the Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Warsaw University of Technology. Automatic data logger to monitor the physico-chemical state of soils is a device equipped with a wide set of interfaces to connect a number of sensors. It is possible to communicate with the base station via the radio link or the Internet for the data transmission and the configuration of the measurements. The recorder has a large integrated memory, which allows one to store large amounts of data and a negligible current consumption, which allows for the long-term operation with battery supply. It is also possible to configure the device to monitor the quantities necessary for the evaluation of physicochemical state of the soil.