The Use of Digital Field Tensiometer and Soil Higrometer In Detecting Soil Water Retention Curve.

Abstract

Tensiometer is a tauting measuring device with a unit of ground water resulting from the measurement results are hPa. Higrometer is a tool to measure the amount of content water in the soil. Soil water retention curve is the relationship between soil water tension (hPa ѱ ) with volumetric water content (θ cm

3 . cm 3 ) which describes the ability of soil to hold water a certain tauting. The purpose of this study to determine the pattern of soil water retention curve generated with pot press sensor ship and the pattern of retention curves based on sensor Gypsum and Zeolite. Research was conducted by utilitizing a digital sensor that has been made tensiohigrometer own earlier method used for data retrieval is with the installation of two different sensors on each ring, sensors tensiometer and higrometer in 1 ring sample consisting of 4 ring sample with a uniform soil type namely inceptisol of Ѱ - θ data were collected every 2 hours starting sample of low tauting to the highest, followed by the value of soil water content measurements obtained from sensors. The measurement result is displayed through an LCD monitor which units have been converted first. The results showed Gypsum sensor tensiometer with pure material and mix Zeolites have tensiogravimetri retention curve pattern that is almost the same. These results indicated by the value NRMSE of 14,01% (for Gypsum) and NRMSE 5,01% (for Zeolit and Gypsum) These results show the sensor with amixture of Zeolite Gypsum tensiometer capable of measuring soil water tauting better than just Gypsum.