Campbell Scientific Sentek TriSCAN® Manual v 1.2a - Manual (Page 13)

TriSCAN Manual Version 1.2a
Copyright © 1991 – 2004 Sentek Pty Ltd All rights reserved Page 6
TriSCAN Applications
A Fertilizer Management Tool and Soil Salinity Early Warning System
Sentek has developed TriSCAN to provide a tool for monitoring, understanding and managing irrigation
water and nutrients, so that they are maintained within the active crop root zone, where they are taken up to
the benefit of the plant and irrigator. These are key challenges of irrigation management today to generate
long term, sustainable irrigation practices.
TriSCAN is designed to be a pro-active day to day on-farm management tool for irrigation and fertilizer
application, to visualize and prevent leakage of water and nutrients from agricultural production systems.
TriSCAN is also designed to report rising salinity levels below or in the active plant root zone and so to
provide an early warning system of salinity impact on the plant.
Note: If TriSCAN is to be used as an early warning system to detect damaging salinity concentrations,
salinity benchmarking (a soil salinity check) should be undertaken – refer the section on Salinity
Benchmarking.
Near-continuous data of soil water and soil salinity taken at multiple levels in the soil profile provides a
picture of:
•
where the roots are taking up water
•
the depth of the active root zone
•
the day-to-day concentration changes of salts and applied fertilizers
This is a new, dynamic approach linking soil water and salinity to management of irrigation and fertilizer
applications; an approach that practically and commercially cannot be achieved using soil sampling alone.
The TriSCAN technology is designed to reduce the soil sampling frequency and it is designed as a
complementary technology that will allow soil sampling to be undertaken at strategic points in time.
Determination of EC or EC
e
in soil samples will verify the magnitude of salinity change detected by the
TriSCAN sensors. This process is called “salinity benchmarking”, that sets the upper and lower limits of the
soil salinity range encountered in the field during the crop season.
Benefits of TriSCAN Applications
The use of the TriSCAN technology can potentially lead to several benefits depending on the user,
application and site conditions. These benefits include:
•
Optimizing fertilizer uptake by the crop
•
Fertilizer savings
•
Optimizing crop quality and yield
•
Improving economic return
•
Minimizing fertilizer leaching into groundwater
•
Preventing soil acidification from nitrate leaching
•
Providing water savings
•
Providing energy (pumping cost) savings
•
Improving soil & water conservation
•
Reducing leakage from field systems
•
Improving irrigation and salinity management
•
Reducing costs to the environment and grower
•
Conforming to regulatory compliance
•
Improving and contributing to the scientific understanding of the water and solute (salt/ fertilizer)
movement in soils