How to measure "water surface tension"?

Question

Water for drinking and irrigation

Answer 1

There are several methods of measuring the surface tension of liquids, most requiring expensive scientific equipment or a lot of mathematical calculations.  The surface tension of water will vary only slightly over a wide range of conditions.  Measuring the surface tension  of water for drinking  or irrigation will benefit you very little if at all.

Answer 2

Surface tension ( for any liquid) can be measured  by lot of methods. You can see all of them in wikipedia. One more method that is not there I can describe. It is called contact angle measurment. For Details see source.

Answer 3

These 2 articles might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_ten...

http://www.bookrags.com/Meniscus

Answer 4

Not sure how the surface tension matters for drinking and irrigation.

Shouldn't vary much unless you have some surfactant in the water.    

Now some pesticides have additives to reduce surface tension so the plant will wet easier.