IoT-based fertigation system for agriculture

Abstract

Fertigation system has been widely used by farmers to automate some processes of crops productions. A conventional system requires workers to prepare a fertilizer mixture, before transferring it into a main storage tank to be mixed with water. Then, electrical conductivity (EC) of the mixture will be measured. The existing fertigation system still relies heavily on workers and is manually operated and prone to human error. Therefore, internet of things (IoT) based fertigation system has been developed to deliver the fertilizer mixture with consistent EC value automatically to the plants. The main system controller is designed using ESP32 development module. The operation of the system can be monitored using an IoT dashboard and farmers can also control the system remotely. Alert will be given to the farmers if the condition of the system or plant does not meet the predefined settings. The values of EC together with temperature and humidity sensors are recorded for further analysis. A testbed is set up to provide fertigation to 120 polybags eggplants. Using the proposed fertigation system, the eggplants have been harvested earlier, therefore reducing the fertilizer usage. The cost of this IoT based fertigation system is lower compared to existing commercial products.