Helping farmers grow food using less water, Pete Jacoby, plant ecologist in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, is advancing water-sensing research in his new role with the American Society of Agronomy.
Jacoby was recently named vice leader of the Society’s Sensor-based Water Management Community, which explores and shares research on water sensors, sensor-based irrigation, and how plants and the soil are affected by water and drought.
Growers have traditionally relied on weather data and their own senses to gauge their crops’ need for water. Members of the Sensor-based Water Management Community are helping develop new tools that tell growers exactly what is happening in the air, soil, and plants.
“Sensor-based water management is the way of the future in crop production,” Jacoby said. “Society benefits from sustainable, precision agriculture, while the environment gains thanks to growers’ better, informed decisions about plants’ real-time water needs.”
As vice leader, Jacoby will help the community of scientists review and share information to build a better picture of plant responses, automation, and how technologies can sense water in the soil and control irrigation. He will help put together and moderate the group’s 2019 symposium in San Antonio, Texas, and will advance to Community Leader in 2020.
At WSU, Professor Jacoby is a teacher, Extension educator and scientist studying the potential of subsurface micro-irrigation for increasing water use efficiency in production of high value crops like wine grapes, hops, and berries. Based at Pullman, his research activities are coordinated from WSU’s Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center at Prosser.
Learn about the Society here: https://www.agronomy.org/
