Tags:Food Security, Internet of Things (IoT), On-farm Water Management, SDG, Smart Agriculture and Sustainability
Abstract:
The agriculture sector is ranked as the highest freshwater consuming sector globally due to the ample amount of water required for the agricultural production. An understanding of the profound nexus between the crop yield, soil properties, climate conditions, farming practice and water is essential for a sustainable agricultural production. The conventional methods for the monitoring of soil and climate patterns during the crop growth have been found less effective due to the greater time, labor use and the non-availability of a continuous and reliable data. This generally leads to soil deterioration, excessive or deficient application of irrigation, and reduced crop yields. Therefore, this empirical study was conducted in the Gadap Town, Sindh – Pakistan to investigate the application of IoT based smart soil and weather sensors for the monitoring of soil and weather conditions over the area during the crop growing period. The results obtained from the soil sensors showed satisfactory measurements of daily soil available moisture, temperature, TDS, salinity levels and nutrient content, whereas the smart weather tracker provided acceptable results of air temperature (Tmax and Tmin), heat index, and relative humidity over the study area. Thus, it was concluded that the IoT based smart soil and weather sensors can be adopted in place of the conventional methods for the real time monitoring of soil and weather conditions, that may assist the farm managers for a better water resource management, soil conservation, and to attain the desired crop water productivity and the per hectare yield.
IoT-Based Soil and Weather Sensors for Crop Monitoring: a Step Towards Smart Agriculture