The implementation of Movement Control Order (MCO) during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021 has affected the production process of agricultural produce due to labour shortage. Agricultural workers were unable to come to work to care for crops. At the same time, the MCO has also given opportunities for budding farmers who began to show interest in gardening and making profit.
Starting from mid-2020, our school has established a small farm using fertigation farming to generate income. Fertigation, formed by two words – fertilization and irrigation; is a concept that relies on using the present irrigation line operating in existing field to inject plants with the desired fertilizers. From this idea, we have designed and proposed an automatic plant watering system, an innovative technology to make farmers work more efficiently and yield more profit.
The irrigation technics currently applied in farms are inefficient and causing excessive volume of water wastage. Artificial intelligence system that is applied in agriculture; also known as precision farming, may help farmers to efficiently control water usage thus produce a profitable crop.
Our project on automatic plant watering system named Mechatronic Fertigation, is a device system that transmits data from soil-moisture sensor to inform decisions about watering schedules besides supporting the efficiency of fertilizers in mass production of agriculture.
If moisture in the soil is considered at the optimum amount, plants can wealthily absorb water. The data obtained from the Mechatronic Fertigation helps farmers to increase their profit by learning how to take care of their crops and determining the ideal amount of water and fertilizer to use. By allowing humans to grow food in urban areas, this technology may have the capacity to reduce deforestation.
