Design and Construction of a Soil Moisture Measuring

A digital soil moisture reader was constructed and tested. It uses a lipo battery of 9v which was regulated to a constant 5v with the help of a voltage regulator 7805. The digital soil moisture reader developed was tested and the result obtained was compared with that obtained using the gravimetric method of determining soil moisture contents. In determining the soil moisture content, a certain quantity of soil was collected and a particular volume of water was added incrementally. The result shows that the soil moisture reader is accurate. The evaluation was carried out using the gravimetric method of soil moisture determination as a basis of comparison. Nine samples of 50g of soli were collected from Federal College of Forestry Mechanization Farm and a certain amount of water was added incrementally during the process of determining the soil moisture content. The soil reader was calibrated using the gravimetric method which shows a regression coefficient R^2 of 0.986 which indicates that the soil reader is accurate, sensitive and reliable.