International Journal of Research in Advanced Electronics Engineering

The increasing adoption of digital agriculture has positioned electronic soil sensors as essential tools for monitoring spatiotemporal changes in vineyard soil environments. Mulching, widely practiced in grape cultivation, alters soil temperature, moisture, and nutrient availability, thereby influencing vine physiology and overall productivity. However, the interaction between mulch-induced soil modifications and vine growth responses remains insufficiently quantified under real-time field conditions. The present research investigates the application of electronic soil sensors to characterize soil dynamics under organic and inorganic mulches and evaluates consequential changes in the vegetative performance of grapevines. Using capacitance-based moisture probes, thermistors, and ion-selective electrodes, soil parameters were monitored at multiple depths across mulch treatments including straw, sawdust, charcoal, and black polyethylene. Sensor-generated data enabled the continuous assessment of soil pH, temperature gradients, moisture retention profiles, and nutrient mobility, providing a high-resolution understanding of how mulching modifies the grapevine rhizosphere.

Preliminary results indicate that organic mulches significantly enhanced soil moisture stability and moderated diurnal temperature fluctuations, while inorganic mulches resulted in higher surface temperatures but reduced evaporative losses. Sawdust and straw mulches promoted favorable nutrient retention, whereas charcoal mulch exhibited distinct effects on soil pH buffering. Integrating sensor-based soil diagnostics with vine growth measurements such as shoot elongation, leaf area index, and stem diameter revealed clear correlations between mulch-mediated soil conditions and vine physiological responses. The research underscores the value of sensor technologies in precision viticulture for designing mulch strategies tailored to site-specific soil constraints.