STONEVILLE, Miss. -- Row-crop growers and consultants now have an online resource for objective information on soil moisture monitoring systems.

The Mississippi State University Extension Service and the National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research have jointly launched a virtual showcase of 11 soil moisture monitoring systems currently installed at the Delta Research and Extension Center. This program is a part of the Row-Crop Irrigation Science Extension and Research (RISER) initiative.

“The new webpage allows producers to observe various soil moisture sensors, telemetry hardware and user interfaces without having to pay for all of them,” said Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station assistant professor and Extension irrigation specialist Drew Gholson. “Instructions are also provided there for viewing live data at any time from the showcase through web browsers and smartphone apps. These systems were generously supplied by six industry partners.”

Gholson developed the showcase with colleague Himmy Lo, also an assistant professor with MAFES and Extension.

To access this free resource and learn more about the participating vendors and their respective systems, visit https://www.ncaar.msstate.edu/outreach/index.php#showcase.

The National Center for Alluvial Aquifer Research is a cooperative program between USDA’s Agricultural Research Service and the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station at MSU. The center was created to address the water resources challenges in the Mississippi River Alluvial Aquifer and is supported under Cooperative Agreement number 58-6001-7-001. RISER is supported by Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board, Mississippi Corn Promotion Board, Mississippi Rice Promotion Board, Cotton Incorporated, and Mississippi Peanut Promotion Board.