An Intelligent Irrigation System for Rural Agriculture

Abstract

The agricultural sector significantly contributes to the economic growth of every country. This sector faces challenges with respect to producing the right quantity and quality of food. Most traditional methods used in growing crops are inadequate to ensuring food security. This challenge can be addressed by applying Information and Communication Technology (I.C.T.) in the agricultural sector. In the cultivation of crops, the use of proper irrigation method is essential in enhancing the growth and yield of crops. This research focuses on the application of information technology to provide the required amount of water needed by crops for growth. With the emergence of Internet of Things (IoT) which involves the interconnection of electronic devices to the Internet and the acquisition of data from these devices through the use sensors, an IoT based Intelligent Irrigation System was built. The Intelligent Irrigation System consisted of a transmitter and a receiver circuit (which is connected to a water pump via an actuator). The transmitter circuit was responsible for reading the moisture content of the soil and transmitting it wirelessly to the receiver. The receiver then made decisions on whether to trigger the pump on or off depending on the received soil moisture data. The Intelligent Irrigation System was piloted on a carrot farm. A total of 16 beds were constructed for the study. It was divided into 2 different blocks. The first block comprised of 8 beds which were manually irrigated and the second block was made up of 8 beds which were irrigated by means of machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. For pre-harvest, the performance indicators used were the height of the plants and the number of leaves per plant. The weight, length and diameter of the carrot plants were used as performance indicators for post-harvest. It was realized that the crops that were watered via M2M communication showed better growth performances as compared to those that were watered manually.