Development of an IoT based weighing type micro-lysimeter for soilless cultivation
![](/public/icon/gor.png)
![](/public/icon/pdf.png)
Keywords:
Evapotranspiration, Greenhouse, IoT, Lysimeter, SoillessAbstract
In the present study, an attempt has been made to apply Internet of Things (IoT) for precise irrigation management. A weighing type micro-lysimeter based on IoT was developed to measure the amount of water consumed by the cucumber crop grown in soilless media under naturally ventilated greenhouse conditions at the Research Farm of Punjab Agricultural University, India. The developed system consisted of two components, i.e. hardware assembly and web-based application. The hardware assembly consists of load cells, a weight sensing module, i.e. HX711 module and a micro controller, i.e. arduino assembled in the control box of the weighing balance. A modular code was written in arduino to record the weight readings. The stored data in the microcontroller was sent to a web based application via wifi. The weight changes at the lysimeters due to irrigation, drainage and evapotranspiration were monitored in real time through an IoT platform, i.e. Thingspeak. Three lysimeters were placed at different locations to account for the slight variations in micro-climate within the greenhouse. The positive flux i.e. irrigation and negative flux, i.e. (leachate+ actual evapotranspiration (ETc)) from the lysimeter were derived from the IoT platform. Irrigation and leachate from the lysimeter was also measured manually to verify the accuracy of the readings obtained from the IoT platform. The study showed that IoT based lysimeters presents a reliable and convenient way to measure ETc as there was a good agreement (R2> 0.98) between irrigation component derived from IoT and actual irrigation applied.
Downloads
References
Abedi-Koupai J, Eslamian S S and Zareian M J. 2011. Measurement and modeling of water requirement and crop coefficient for cucumber, tomato and pepper using micro lysimeter in greenhouse. Journal of Science and Technology of Greenhouse Culture 2(7): 51-64.
Aboukhaled A, Alfaro A and Smith M.1982. Lysimeters. FAO Irrigation and Drainage Paper No. 39.FAO, Rome, Italy, p 68.
Allen R G, Jensen M E, Wright J L and Burman R D.1989. Operational estimates of reference evapotranspiration. Journal of Agronomy 81: 650–62. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2134/agronj1989.00021962008100040019x
Allen R G, Pereira L S, Howell T A and Jensen M E .2011. Evapotranspiration information reporting: I. Factors governing measurement accuracy. Agricultural Water Management 98(6): 899-920. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agwat.2010.12.015
Boast C W and Robertson T M.1982. A “micro-lysimeter” method for determining evaporation from bare soil: description and laboratory evaluation. Journal of Soil Science Society of America 46(4): 689-96. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj1982.03615995004600040005x
Dhawan V.2017. Water and Agriculture in India. Background paper for the South Asia expert panel during the Global Forum for Food and Agriculture (GFFA). Online source culled from https://www.oav.de/fileadmin/user_upload/5_Publikationen/5_Studien/170118_Study_Water_Agriculture_India.pdf
Doorenbos J and Pruitt W O.1977. Guidelines for predicting crop-water requirements. (In) FAO Irrigation and Drainage. Paper No. 24, second ed. FAO, Rome, Italy, p156.
Harrold L L, Watts C J, Rodriguez J C and De Bruin H A R.1966. Measuring evapotranspiration by lysimetry. Proceedings of Conference on Evapotranspiration, ASAE, pp 28–33 Chicago, IL, USA.
Howell T A, McCormick R L and Phene C J.1985. Design and installation of large weighing lysimeters. Transactions ASAE 28 (106–112):117. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.32212
Jensen M E.1974. Consumptive use of water and irrigation water requirements. ASCE, p 227.
Kim Y, Jabro J D and Evans R G.2011. Wireless lysimeters for real time online soil water monitoring. Irrigation Science 29(5): 423–30. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00271-010-0249-x
Liu H, Meng Z and Cui S.2007. A wireless sensor network prototype for environmental monitoring in greenhouses. (In) Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing, Wi Com 2007. International Conference on IEEE, pp 2344-47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/WICOM.2007.584
Marek T H, Schmeider A D, Howell T A and Ebeling L L.1988. Design and construction of large weighing monolithic lysimeters. Transactions ASAE 31 (2): 477–84. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13031/2013.30734
Mendez G R, Yunus M A M and Mukhopadhyay S C.2012. A WiFi based smart wireless sensor network for monitoring an agricultural environment. (In) Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), 2012 IEEE International, pp 2640-45. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/I2MTC.2012.6229653
Muangprathub J, Boonnam N, Kajornkasirat S, Lekbangpong N, Wanichsombat A and Nillaor P. 2019. IoT and agriculture data analysis for smart farm. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 156: 467-74. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2018.12.011
Rana G and Katerji N.2000. Measurement and estimation of actual evapotranspiration in the field under Mediterranean climate: a review. European Journal of Agronomy 13:125-153. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1161-0301(00)00070-8
Sarangi S, Umadikar J and Kar S.2016. Automation of agriculture support systems using Wisekar: case study of a crop-disease advisory service. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture 122: 200–10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.01.009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2016.01.009
Tyagi N K, Sharma D K and Luthra S K.2000. Evapotranspiration and crop coefficients (Measurement and computation for crop water requirements Bulletin 1/2000), Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Karnal, India.
Zamora-Izquierdo M A, Santa J, Martinez J A, Martinez V and Skarmeta A F. 2019. Smart farming IoT platform based on edge and cloud computing. Biosystems Engineering 177: 4-17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2018.10.014
Downloads
Submitted
Published
Issue
Section
License
The copyright of the articles published in The Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences is vested with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, which reserves the right to enter into any agreement with any organization in India or abroad, for reprography, photocopying, storage and dissemination of information. The Council has no objection to using the material, provided the information is not being utilized for commercial purposes and wherever the information is being used, proper credit is given to ICAR.