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UNL’s neutron monitor aiming for more accurate soil moisture readings

A neutron monitor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is helping gather more accurate soil moisture and hydrology readings.

Professor Trenton Franz says it’s the next generation of passive sensing and doesn’t require probes in the ground.

“The comparison with remote sensing, is those can only see about two inches into the soil. A farmer really needs three, four feet,” he says. “With the neutrons we can see about 12 to 15 inches into the ground, so they’re a little bit deeper and more of the root zone. That’s really the advantage over satellites.”

He says it removes any distortion from data caused by cosmic solar rays and will help farmers make better decisions in their fields.

“We put these devices either on top of pivots and you can rotate around and get soil moisture information. We’ve also put them on tractors or in vehicles, so you can make soil moisture maps with neutron monitoring,” he says.

The neutron monitor is the third such device in the U.S. and the first to be placed in the Midwest. 

Funding for the project was made possible from the National Science Foundation, Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Photo credit: Craig Chandler, UNL Communications and Marketing (Trenton Franz, professor of hydrogeophysics at Nebraska, stands beside the newly installed neutron monitor at the Eastern Nebraska Research, Extension and Education Center near Mead.)