Vegetronix VG400 (soil moisture sensor) alternative?

Development Boards Arduino
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I’ve used the [Vegetronix VG400 soil moisture sensor for several Arduino Fio projects (transmitting data back to a receiver) and the results have always been great. However at $30 per unit those suckers are costly. Can anyone suggest a cheaper sensor?

Thanks,

Andrew](Soil Moisture Sensor - VH400)

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I have been looking for the same thing, because I want to use a bunch of soil moisture sensors.

A partner of Vegetronix is Fertile Earth. Their product Waterstik looks like VG400 with some LED and logic added - but the connector removed.

http://www.amazon.com/FERTILE-EARTH-PLA … B003AYWD7G

Has anyone connected them to an Arduino?

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Couldn’t you bury a DHT11 or DHT22 inside of some kind of dirt-proof enclosure and read the data off of that. Since the humidity in an enclosed area reflects that of the surrounding area and the mass of soil makes it such that temperature changes slower than it does in free air I think that would work. The soil moisture sensors either use that or resistance of the soil… since it could be very cheap to measure resistance I would check that option out too…

Also look at the soil sensors at http://www.humiditycn.com . They look like they are in some kind of box at the top of a tube that goes into the ground. That might work too.

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This person figured out how to make soil moisture sensors for under a penny a piece using plaster of paris.

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2 … ensor.html

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trillium:
This person figured out how to make soil moisture sensors for under a penny a piece using plaster of paris.

Brilliant.