Precise use of water is vital, especially nowadays with water scarcity and restrictions. Accurate and continuous data about soil moisture can not only support your water management, but also allow you to act more sustainable and save costs. Seeing the importance that this process has in your daily jobs, we decided to develop the tool that will that will support you with weekly soil moisture measurements on the entire course.
We have conducted intensive research since March 2024 to bring that new parameter into life. Soil moisture is remotely sensed by SKIM’s algorithms from the reflectance of turf in multispectral satellite imagery. To validate results, avoid randomness and potential lack of sensitivity to the soil moisture values, we have carried out 6,785 TDRs measurements which served the training purposes of our machine learning models.
Thanks to AI, SKIM has made frequent automated calibration and accurate remote sensing possible. Soil moisture measurements are provided for areas of 1,5 m2/5sqft, at a depth of 4cms/1,5inch. and with an accuracy of 6,5%. Each measurement estimated by SKIM has been confronted to the TDR results on the ground, in various conditions from 9 courses located in the USA and Europe. SKIM matches TDR measurements within about 6%.
You can now leverage soil moisture data on your entire golf course, directly from SKIM’s dashboard.
SKIM Turf Management software allows you to:
- Obtain continuous and consistent data for your golf course to highlight wet zones/drought stress and take informed decisions - You can also adjust norms to your local golf course conditions (link to blog post).
- Use the maps and images to focus your attention on trouble areas and make your scouting more efficient - You can then go out on the course and investigate specific areas that are stressed.
- Store all historical data which enables you to enhance your analytics with results from the past - If you just get started with SKIM, we will provide you a minimum of one year of historical data from archive imagery from satellites.
- Interpret results based on your irrigation system as SKIM also allows you to overlay it on the images (see image below).
Turf management decisions often need the analysis of different parameters. In SKIM, you can do it one place from the Dashboard and the dedicated Reporting module.
