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Updated: Feb 9, 2026

Manufacturing Simple and Inexpensive Soil Surface Temperature and Gravimetric Water Content Sensors
Published on: December 21, 2019
Reply to Comments: A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical
Alan Kardek Rêgo Segundo1, Marco Jose da Silva2, Gustavo Medeiros Freitas3
1Department of Control and Automation Engineering (DECAT), Escola de Minas, Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto (UFOP), Morro do Cruzeiro, 35400-000 Ouro Preto, MG, Brazil. alankardek@ufop.edu.br.
Abstract:
In this article we respond to the comments made by Chavanne et al., who have questioned: (i) the name of the technique used; (ii) the ability of the system to determine both soil water content and salinity due to potential instrument biases and choice of sensor frequencies; and (iii) the procedure used to determine temperature effect on readings presented in the article "A Novel Low-Cost Instrumentation System for Measuring the Water Content and Apparent Electrical Conductivity of Soils" (Sensors 2015, 15, 25546⁻25563). We have carefully analyzed the arguments in the comment, and have concluded that they only partially affect the previous conclusions, as will be discussed in this reply. We show here that the findings and conclusions previously drawn are valid and supported by the many experiments previously conducted.
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