Preliminary design for crop monitoring involving water and fertilizer conservation using wireless sensor networks

The main aim of this paper is to propose a state of art wireless sensor technology in agriculture, which can show the path to the rural farming community to replace some of the traditional techniques. In this project, the sensor motes have several external sensors namely leaf wetness, soil moisture, soil pH, atmospheric pressure sensors attached to it. Based on the value of soil moisture sensor the mote triggers the water sprinkler during the period of water scarcity. Once the field is sprinkled with adequate water, the water sprinkler is switched off. Hereby water can be conserved. Also the value of soil pH sensor is sent to the base station and in turn base station intimates the farmer about the soil pH via SMS using GSM modem. Obtaining the soil pH value in his mobile the farmer selects the necessary fertilizer and crop for his next season. Hereby the amount of fertilizer can be reduced. In order to overcome the lack of information and technical support and to increase the rice production, a development of rice cropping monitoring using WSN is proposed to provide a helping hand to farmers in real-time monitoring, achieving precision agriculture, and thus increasing the rice production. Thus automated control of water sprinkling and ultimate supply of information to farmers is done as a result of this project using wireless sensor network.