An automatic irrigation control system for soilless culture of lettuce

Abstract

To achieve precise measurement of moisture content in the substrate and intelligent water-saving irrigation, a simple and low cost automatic irrigation control system based on ZigBee wireless network has been developed. A software with irrigation strategy was proposed based on the models of substrate wetting pattern, lettuce root zone and the evapotranspiration. The system could detect substrate moisture in real-time and irrigate automatically according to the threshold of substrate and the irrigation strategy. The average fresh weight per plant under intelligent irrigation are 16.60% and 11.37% higher than manual control irrigation at least in different growth stages in spring and summer, the average drainage rate of intelligent irrigation is 16.08% and 17.06% smaller than manual control irrigation in spring and summer, and the irrigation water use efficiency of intelligent irrigation is 68.03% and 98.61% higher than manual control irrigation in spring and summer. The results show that the system is a promising tool for scientific and rational irrigation decision.