• Introduction
• Weather and Soil Moisture Monitoring observations
• Speedo assessments - change in overall soil moisture at a particular site.
• Speedo soil moisture graphs
  • Mallee
  • Wimmera
  • North Central
  • North East
  • Gippsland cropping
  • South West

The soil moisture monitoring project, with the use of underground probes, provides real-time soil water content data to Victoria’s farmers.

Monitoring sites have been set up in cropping regions throughout the state by Agriculture Victoria.

The sites record soil water content at one source point from 30 centimetres (cm) down to one metre as a reference point for a paddock.

To access information provided in the graphs, log onto the Agriculture Victoria soil moisture monitoring dashboard.

No login or passwords required, and speedos are automatically updated and will represent the most recent rainfall.

Figure 1: Rainfall deciles for Victoria (growing season rainfall to date - April and May)

There has been average rainfall for the Wimmera and Mallee for the growing season as result of the above average April, followed by a dry May.

Figure 2.  May rainfall deciles

There has been limited rain for most of May across the cropping regions and it was average to decile 2.

Figure 3. May rainfall totals for Victoria

After the early start to the season and breaking rain in mid-April, there was less than 25 mm for May in the Mallee and parts of the Wimmera and Northcentral Victoria.  This created challenging conditions for crop sown in May to germinate and emerge. Recent rainfall at the end of May will assist crops to emerge to a higher percentage and provide better conditions for crop development to early sown crops.  Recent and historical rainfall maps

Soil moisture measurements collected by the Agriculture Victoria moisture probe network have shown that generally, soil moisture profiles are all higher than commonly observed at this time of the year.
Mallee paddocks are still well above average moisture conditions.  May rainfall was below average but there are no crops at a growth stage with high water requirements to deplete reserves. Wimmera, Central and Northeast are moderate/high to high and have some areas have new season moisture connected to deeper moisture laid down in October and November 2022.
Moisture profiles in the Southwest have been building up over the past two months.

Note - use extensionaus.com.au/soilmoisturemonitoring to monitor the changes to the sites relevant to you in between the next reporting period and following rain events.

Deep soil moisture is 100%. Soil temperature is 13.8 degrees.

Deep soil moisture profiles remained stable over the dry summer and the profile is still at field capacity.  Conditions are 24% wetter than this time last year.

The Speed soil moisture monitoring site has a wet profile down to 100 centimetres.

The Agriculture Victoria dashboard also displays soil temperatures which shows the correlation of rain events cooling the soil with general temperature fall as autumn kicks in. Frost events in mid-May continued to drop soil temperatures but following rain on 25 May, there has been a slight rise with milder overnight temperatures.

Speedo shows moisture profiles are 100% and they were at this level a year ago with the autumn break 19 April 2022. There is a connection to last season’s moisture from the 16 April 2023 rain but there has been limited rain since.

Moisture conditions are now similar to this time last year after no moisture improvement in the past month, while last year, the autumn break boosted conditions significantly (by 25%). This site is an example of a high yielding crop last season that was late to mature and continued to use moisture through early December. The moisture per cent by sensor depth, indicates close to 66% of plant available water through the soil.

https://extensionaus.com.au/soilmoisturemonitoring/Bangerang/

Deep soil moisture conditions are good and 20% wetter than this time last year. There have been no moisture improvements during the growing season.

Deep soil moisture conditions are good and 19% wetter than this time last year. There have been no moisture improvements during the growing season.

The high water holding capacity soil (self-mulching clay) is still very wet to depth. It is 65% higher than this time last year.

Please follow the link to the soil moisture monitoring dashboard to obtain the most recent changes in the Wimmera at Taylors Lake.

Deep soil moisture conditions are good at 70% following a high yielding canola crop in 2022.   It’s 30% lower than this time last year, however, the paddock was in fallow and had a better autumn break in 2022 in comparison.

Note - this paddock was in fallow with no crop grown last year which will traditionally bank moisture. Moisture is expected to be positioned well below one metre. The soil type should permit the winter crop access to this in spring if there are periods where rainfall doesn’t meet crop requirements. There are chances of this with the short and medium term seasonal outlook.

Many cropping sites around Raywood are showing full deep profiles.

Modelled soil moisture at Elmore with the Soilwater  app compared to moisture probe data, indicates similar trend changes associated with limited summer rainfall and effective weed control.  High yielding wheat last season left the deep profile 52% full and improvements this autumn in April have already been observed.

Youanmite has a full profile and connection of new seasons moisture to the deep moisture carryover from 2022.

The Giffard West site in Gippsland is drier than this time last year and there have been no moisture improvements in the past month.

The Lake Bolac site is off line. Field repairs required.

Spring sown chickpeas consumed most of the freely available water in the profile at Hamilton during summer. Autumn rainfall has moved moisture down with some small increases of moisture at the deeper depths. Sensors are wet at 30 - 50 cm.

https://extensionaus.com.au/soilmoisturemonitoring/Hamilton/

The second probe site at Yalla - Y - Poora in the Southwest is in the process of conversion to the dashboard format. Finishing last season at about 60% plant available water, during autumn, moisture has improved 25%.