Substrate Monitoring
Solutions for substrate monitoring to track moisture, temperature, and salts in the root zone, from a few-dollar probe to the instruments research stations bury.
On the bench
Capacitive Soil-Moisture Probe Coming
A few-dollar probe that reads how wet the root zone is by capacitance: no exposed metal contacts to corrode the way the old resistive forks do. Push it into the pot or the bed, wire it to the board, and the moisture curve tells you when the zone actually dries, not when you assume it does.
SDI-12 Research Soil Probe
The instruments research stations use: one buried probe reporting moisture, temperature, and salts (EC) over SDI-12, the open digital bus on professional gear. Several probes share one wire, each at its own address, and the readings land in a record you own instead of a proprietary datalogger.
Long-Stem DS18B20 Probe Coming
The same few-dollar stainless probe from the coldchain aisle, on a stem long enough to reach the core of the pile. A hot pile is a working pile: the temperature curve tells you when it turns, when it stalls, and when it is done, without opening it once.