Development of a low-cost weather station and real-time monitoring for automated irrigation management

Abstract

Irrigation is a practice that increases productivity and enables the expansion of agricultural borders. This practice should be well managed to ensure the efficient use of water by plants, and such management requires specialized labor, which increases operating costs. Therefore, the main objective of this study is the implementation of an automated irrigation system that considers factors ranging from water demand to the operation of the system. Because the daily water demand is determined by crop evapotranspiration, a low-cost weather station was developed to acquire data daily. Such data can be used to estimate the reference evapotranspiration (ET0) using the Penman-Monteith model of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Thus, by combining the amount of water required by a crop with the physical and hydraulic properties of the soil and the hydraulic properties of the irrigation system, it was possible to determine the daily frequency and amount of time required for the system to operate to meet the water requirements of the crop without undergoing stress from a deficit or an excess of water. The management/monitoring system was designed and implemented to allow the user to access data remotely through an online application. This application enables the real-time transmission of irrigation-related data, such as weather station data and system logs, obviating the need for the user to be present at the crop site. This allows the supervision of many areas simultaneously with low cost.