Design and construction of a rainwater harvesting and an automated gravity fed drip irrigation system for collard greens growing at Bukade hill, Busitema University.

Abstract

Currently, global technology plays very tremendous role in the field of agriculture and therefore, automation is adopted in most parts of the world. Automation is the technology with which a procedure or process is executed without human assistance. Most irrigation systems are still physically regulated where farmers visit their agricultural fields periodically to manually control the irrigation process basing on the irrigation schedules. This requires a lot of time and labour and may lead to over or under irrigation of the plants resulting in low yields. This study therefore was to determine how a person can use the automatic irrigation system of his own moderately economical facilities in a few hours to connect some electronic components and other materials. An automatic irrigation system based on sensor-based systems were designed and implemented as one of the most widely used and advantageous automatic systems. This will help people in their daily activities, thus saving them time and hard work. This system uses sensor technology (soil moisture sensor, temperature, humidity sensors, etc) with the microcontroller, camera, relay, and battery. Behaves as an intelligent switching system that detects the soil moisture level and irrigates the plant if necessary and these can be remotely monitored even through an application. The opening and closing of the valve was automatically based on the dryness level of the soil and other environmental factors that affect irrigation. Sensor readings were transmitted to raspberry pi controller which was the heart of the system and these readings checked against a predetermined threshold. In general, this system applies automatically for small and large gardens, nurseries, greenhouses and green roofs. This will also save time and energy, as well as minimize water loss.