IoT based smart irrigation system and nutrient detection with disease analysis

Agriculture remains the sector which contributes the highest to India's GDP. But, when considering technology that is deployed in this field, we find that the development is not tremendous. After consulting with the Kerala Agricultural University, Mannuthy and Kerala Rice Research Station, Vytilla, we identified a few fundamental issues that are faced by the paddy farmers today. It includes the problem of over or under watering and the need for regular manual irrigation. Furthermore, when it comes to rice, which is the staple crop of Kerala, there does not exist a system for automatically monitoring the diseases associated with the rice species, and checking whether the crop is supplied with ample amount of nutrients. In this paper, we have devised a means for cost-effective automated irrigation and fertigation along with MATLAB based image processing for identifying the rice diseases and nutrient deficiencies. Here, we are focusing on two important nutrients, namely magnesium and nitrogen. The hardware consists of a Raspberry Pi, DHT11 temperature and humidity sensor and solenoid valves. Furthermore, the proposed model enables the farmer to monitor weather conditions using an Android Application, with which he also has a choice to override the system if required.