Real-time soil monitoring and irrigation system for taro yam cultivation

Abstract

The yam cultivation industry faces hurdles in satisfying the world’s rising demand. Meanwhile, agricultural activities encounter issues such as monitoring systems for soil composition that are not directly integrated with the irrigation system. Hence, this research aims to develop an irrigation and soil monitoring system using NodeMcu ESP8266 for taro yam cultivation.
A soil composition and irrigation device were developed using NodeMcu ESP8266 to control the irrigation system autonomously. Then, the real-time monitoring systems using Blynk 2.0 was designed. The final method is used to test the irrigation and soil monitoring system in a taro yam growing area. The results show that the irrigation and soil monitoring system reduced water usage by about 32.5%, as the 3.6 liters of water used daily before applying the irrigation and soil monitoring device was reduced to 2.43 liters per day. In conclusion, the developed device can conveniently display the ambient air’s humidity, temperature, and soil moisture conditions on smartphones and desktops. In addition, this system can maintain soil moisture according to a set value, which can prevent excessive water use for taro yam cultivation.