Development and design of an Automatic Irrigation System.

Abstract

Manual/mechanical irrigation has led to wastage of water and is labour intensive. There is therefore, need to develop an automatic irrigation system which can sense the moisture content and determine when to switch on/off the pumps. The study aimed at developing and designing an automatic Irrigation System. A computer program that determines the moisture content in the soil and a circuit that triggers a pump were developed. Then the automated irrigation system was tested. It was confirmed that irrigation occurs only when the moisture content in the soil is low and stops once the soil attains sufficient moisture suitable for the plant. Therefore the system meets the water saving purposes since there is little or no wastage of water due to the automated irrigation system.